


Maybe Baby

by Amaria_Anna_D



Series: The Words Verse [2]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:32:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaria_Anna_D/pseuds/Amaria_Anna_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in “The Words” universe. Matt and Frank can’t seem to agree on whether or not expand their family. And to make matters worse, Matt may have stumbled onto something very dangerous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this story, please follow me at handoftheassassin.tumblr.com for faster updates and to send me fic requests.

Maybe Baby

 

Chapter 1

 

The whole thing started at a baby shower—someplace that Frank had never actually pictured himself being. It was for Foggy and Marci who had let the bomb drop only a couple of months earlier that they were expecting. Rather than the cheesy pink and blue feminine mess that most baby showers were or at least, what Frank pictured they were, the pair had decided to do a fairly low key brunch at one of Marci’s favorite restaurants. Thankfully instead of baby bottles full of mimosas and mini sandwiches there was actual food and a fully stocked bar. Still, this was more Matt’s place than Frank’s. These were Matt’s friends and acquaintances. Frank was quite contented to be a plus one sitting at an abandoned table alone drinking a cup of coffee spiked with a heavy dose of whiskey while his husband was making the rounds with the father-to-be. He vaguely remembered Maria’s baby shower. It had been a nightmare’s worth of pink ribbons and doting relatives, and he’d only been required to pick up the presents at the end.

The chair beside him slid out and Frank turned his head to see none other than the Hell-bitch herself Jeri Hogarth taking a seat. “Please tell me you and Matt aren’t considering any of this non-sense,” she snorted.

“Don’t see how it is any of your fucking business if we do,” he growled in return. In his days with the bureau, he’d met some real slime ball lawyers, but this woman took the cake. There was something about her that made him believe that she’d sell her own wife, mother, and grandmother down the river if it meant she’d win a big enough case. How the hell Matt and Foggy could stand working in the same building as Hogarth, he’d never know.

“I’m already down two partners once this parental leave bullshit starts,” she replied apologetically. Jeri gave him a half grin and took a sip of her champagne. “I’m glad you saw fit to breed before you met Matthew.”

With that stunning piece of rudeness, she was gone, leaving Frank gritting his teeth in her wake. “Cunt,” he murmured to himself.

By the grace of God, Matt came back to the table not long after, and they were soon on their way home. In the car, Frank shared the gist of what had happened, ending by saying: “I am almost tempted to adopt a kid just to fuck with her.”

He had expected Matt to laugh, not look oddly thoughtful about it. “Have you ever thought about it?”

“Doing something to piss off Jeri? All the damn time,” Frank snarked, hoping that by feigning ignorance he could steer his husband away from the topic that was coming.

“Adopting,” Matt corrected. His brows were knit in the way that Frank now interpreted as an exasperated eye roll. “I know we’ve never actually talked about it, but do you ever think about it?”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Frank shrugged. “I dunno...I guess so. You have?”

“Of course I have! How could I not? I love Lisa and Frankie with all my heart, but the thought of us raising a child together… I don’t know. I just think we have a lot to give another child. Don’t you?” The look on Matt’s face made Frank’s stomach turn.

If he were honest, he’d thought about it a fair bit. He thought about it every time he saw Matt with their kids. Frank could picture Matt with an infant in his arms so clearly sometimes that it actually made his insides ache, but then there was the other side of the coin. They both had pretty demanding jobs. Hell, Frank was pretty frequently gone for weeks at a time. With Frank and Lisa, they had Maria. It took three adults and sometimes even a little extra help to keep up with two kids. How would they handle it with just two? It wasn’t like they could afford to raise three (or more) children in New York on his salary alone and to keep anything like the life they had. On top of that, he couldn’t see Matt giving up his career even a much as he could imagine giving up his own. In imaginary land, he would love to have a couple more kids, maybe another dog and a white fucking picket fence, but their life was in the real world.

Finally, Frank let out a sigh. “Thought about it, yeah. But there is a lot to consider, Red.”

“So are you saying ‘I’ve considered it and decided that no I don’t want to’ or are you saying ‘this is something we need to talk more about’?” Matt asked with the tenacity in his voice that had been known to shake the opposing council. “I’m not saying that I am one-hundred percent ready to sign on for this, but I need to know if this is even something you are willing to explore together.”

“I want to say I’m on board with even starting down this road, but I don’t really even know how I feel about it right now. Part of me wonders if we open up Pandora’s box if this could lead to you getting your heart broken. Is it still worth exploring if in the end I decide that I just can’t do it? I don’t want be the one who let’s you down,” Frank admitted as he parked. He reached across the seat and grabbed Matt’s hand. “I wish I had a better answer for you.”

Matt shrugged and squeezed Frank’s hand back. The smile on his face was forced. “It was an honest answer. That’s the best I can ask for.”

For the rest of the day, the pair went through the motions. Everything they did was typical, but it lacked their usual rhythm. Frank could practically feel Matt’s disappointment from across the room as he worked on his laptop in his favorite chair while he watched the hockey game. His gaze kept darting over to where Matt was pecking away at the keyboard with an aggravated scowl.

“Case not going well?” Frank asked, breaking their usual rule about work talk.

“It’s not really an actual case even,” the lawyer sighed as he tore an earbud out and tossed it on the side table. “I keep going back over and over again the file I have for the tenement case from last year. Something feels...I don’t know off. Granted the slum lord who used to own the place was a real piece of shit, but this whole thing just feels bigger than one dirt bag wanting to sell off a building. It’s just off...”

Frank trusted his gut and he had learned to trust Matt’s too on most things. If it weren’t for his blindness, he didn’t doubt Matt would have been one hell of an agent. There had to be a real reason for Matt to say that something was off. Turning off the game, Frank slid to the closer end of the couch.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

By the time Matt was done explaining the whole situation, Frank’s gut instinct was that something was more than just off. Scum bags suddenly disappearing to remote islands in the sun with no phones wasn’t completely foreign to Frank. It happened more frequently the higher up the food chain of parasites, so why would a small timer get the treatment along with a big money law firm defense unless there was something worth covering up going on here? The other thing that bothered him was the whole corporate shell game Matt had uncovered with the current building owners. Something was definitely more than off.

“Want to print up a copy of your files for me, Red?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

Matt’s brows shot up. “Wouldn’t that be a misuse of your position?

“Maybe if I was the one looking into it. I’ve know a guy at the office with a knack for this kind of shit. Couldn’t hurt to let him take a look at it,” Frank said with a shrug.

The next morning both Matt and Frank were behind on their usual schedule. Matt’s driver, Joe was crouched on the kitchen floor throwing a squeak toy for Max waiting when Frank was tossing a few final things into his briefcase. The former Army private had been working for Matt for about a year before Frank met him, and the two of them had hit it off right off the bat in a way that only two men who’d been to hell and back could. Joe had been only eighteen when he’d shipped out and not even twenty when he was flown back stateside with his left leg blown to bits and his brains scrambled. He was a lanky kid with short blond hair and a nasty looking scar that ran from his chin up and into his scalp, but he was always quick to smile.

“Want some coffee?” Frank offered before filling his travel mug.

Joe shook his head and made a jitters motion with his hands. While his smarts were still intact, his ability to speak them had been greatly diminished. “T...too m...m...much,” he managed to stutter out with an apologetic grin.

“Guess I’m immune by now,” Frank chuckled. “Matt running you all over the place today?”

“Office,” he replied with a bored shrug. The kid had first started working at the gym as a maintenance man and then started driving Matt to appointments in between. Sadly, it was probably one of the better jobs he would ever hold. Despite the fact that he’d been a medic and probably would have gone to med school, not too many jobs were open for a kid who could barely grind out a sentence and couldn’t read or right thanks to the aphasia caused by his brain injury. It was one of life’s great injustices that no one could do a damn thing about.

When Matt appeared in the kitchen, he was still tying his tie. “Thanks for waiting, Joe. I know you have better things to do than wait on me.”

“No p...p...problem, b...boss. Dog...,” the kid explained with painstaking effort. “Throw t...toy.”

“And if Max had his way, I’d be running late all day,” Matt said with a chuckle obviously understanding what Joe had meant. “Ready?”

Joe grinned. “R..Ready.”

After a quick kiss, Frank and Matt went their separate ways.

Frank knew that the most important thing he needed to do that day was get the file he’d gotten off Matt into the hands a coworker who truly did have a knack with the kind of thing that he suspected was going down in the tenement. He found Lou Massaro sitting behind a stack of manila folders as high as his balding head muttering to himself. Knocking on the door frame without actually stopping to wait for an answer, Frank pulled up a chair.

“Mornin’ Lou,” he said pulling the file out.

“Castle,” the older agent mumbled, barely looking up from his paperwork. He was one of the few guys Frank knew who still did most of his work by hand written notes. If he wasn’t damn good at what he did, it was no big secret that the bureau would have pushed him into retirement. The scratching of his pen stopped momentarily and he looked up at Frank with blood shot eyes. “There a particular reason the Punisher is at my desk?”

Frank rolled his eyes at the nickname. He’d earned it not long after passing his certification on his first big bust. Not only had the sit bag in question been a hired killer, but he liked to get his kicks with boys as young as twelve. The guy’d had about thirty pounds on Frank and a knife as opposed to Frank’s bare fists, but that hadn’t mattered much. For a moment, all Frank had seen was a wall of red and rage. He’d imagined what those kids had gone through and nothing else mattered—not the law, not the agency, nothing. Afterward, he’d learned just how loyal some of guys in the bureau could be. He’d gotten off with a slap on the wrist and branded “the Punisher.”

Holding up the file, he shrugged. “My husband’s former client may have stirred something up. Could be something, could be nothing.”

“You wouldn’t bring me nothin’,” Lou scoffed, staring Frank down over the rim of his glasses. He began rifling through the pages, but then stopped suddenly and pulled another file from the stack. He tossed both files in his desk and rubbed his eyes. “Do me a favor?”

“Sure thing,” Frank agreed.

“Tell your man to stay outta this one, and don’t tell nobody you gave me that. I want to keep this quiet until I’ve got more than a shoe-string theory.” With that Lou went back to his stack of papers without so much as a “fuck you” in parting.

The next week went by much like any other one. On the surface, everything was fine, but Frank could feel the difference in Matt since the baby shower. He still smiled and said “I love you” in his usual way. They fucked. They fought and made up—and fucked again. They hung out with Maria and the kids and with Jack. It was all so normal. So normal in fact, that Frank almost let himself believe that there wasn’t a tiny rift growing between them. It was almost like water filling up behind a cracked dam. And when that dam broken, the first real trial on their marriage began.

They’d been at the movies when Lisa ran into some friends from school. She’d scampered up to them leaving her brother and fathers behind her. The girls almost instantly began squealing over something in that way that only teen girls could. If the sound was hell on his ears it, it had to have been a thousand times worse for Matt, but it wasn’t the shrieking that made his face crumple a moment later. Lisa’s friend leaned in to whisper something into her ear and their daughter replied casually in an equally soft tone. Frank hadn’t been able to hear it, but Matt sure as fuck did. Whatever was said, it looked like Matt’s heart was breaking in two. He pasted on a smile a moment later that didn’t fool Frank one bit.

While they were out with the kids, it wasn’t possible for Frank to ask about it so he waited until after they’d dropped them off at Maria’s to bring it up. “What did she say, Red?”  
“Hmm? Who?” Matt asked, pretending not to already know.

“I may not be a fucking human polygraph, but I know when you are full of shit,” Frank growled. “What did Lisa say?”

Matt swallowed hard and gave a hollow chuckle. “Nothing that wasn’t true. Why does it matter?”

“Because it fucking matters! If she is saying shit that she shouldn’t be...”

“She’s twelve years old, Frank! It’s not her fault that I can eavesdrop on her from across the god damned movie theater. She deserves at least that amount privacy,” Matt bit back harshly. The set of his jaw left no doubt that this was going to be a full blown argument.

Frank slammed the car into park roughly as they pulled into their space. “The fuck she deserves privacy. She’ll get privacy when she’s an adult. I’m her father!”

“And you have know idea how ironic that statement is to this conversation. Either way, you just proved something: I’m not her father. Not in your eyes, and not in hers.” Matt slammed the door behind him and headed across the parking garage without waiting for Frank.

Stalking after him, not even trying to keep up, Frank tried to slow his breath and control his anger. He was pissed at Matt. Pissed at Lisa. Mostly he was just pissed at himself for not having the brains to just let it drop. Still, how could anyone say that Matt wasn’t the kids father? Matt would go to hell and back for those kids, and they knew it. What the fuck had Lisa said to set him off? By the time he caught up with Matt in the apartment, some semblance of calm had settled over him.

“Please just tell me what upset you so we can talk about it,” he pleaded as he attempted to push Max’s kisses aside.

Matt leaned against the counter and took a long sip of a beer. “It wasn’t anything Lisa meant to be hurtful, and she had no idea I could hear them. Her friend made a comment about not knowing that her dad was blind, and Lisa said: ‘that’s not my dad, that’s just my step-dad.’It was an innocent comment.”

“You’re her dad too, and she knows it. I’m sure she didn’t mean it the way you are taking it,” Frank said, wrapping an arm around Matt’s shoulders

“I know I’m over reacting. It just hurts to think that for as much as I love our kids, that I am still only a step father. And I know that counts, but I just keep thinking how much I would have loved to be there when they were little, you know? I wouldn’t love them any more than I do now—I couldn’t. It’s just I wish I could have been there from the start with you and them. DNA doesn’t make a family. I know that and so do the kids. I know in my heart that they love me too as their ‘Papa Matt.’” Shaking his head, Matt buried his face into Frank’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I’m talking in circles.”

Frank closed his eyes and bit his lip. They both knew that wasn’t true. They both knew what Matt really wanted and why he was upset. “You want another kid,” he said finally.

Matt smiled in that sad way of his. “And you don’t.”

That night they both laid awake pretending to sleep. Frank stared into the darkness thinking about what had happened that night. It wasn’t one-hundred percent true that he didn’t want another child. Before the wedding, he’d told himself that he would be fine with Matt wanting more kids, but that hadn’t been true either. There was a fear in his gut that went the whole way back to his years in the Marines. He’d seen too many guys come home from war to find out that “their” kid had someone else’s eyes or smile. He’d seen them be too proud to admit it and pretend to love the kid that they knew wasn’t really theirs. True signing on to be an adoptive parent was an entirely different thing, but there was a small part of him that wondered if he could be as good of a man as Matt was and really be a father to a kid that wasn’t really his. Either way, as he finally closed his eyes, he promised himself that he would talk to Matt about it the next evening.

In the morning the pair went about their business. Frank headed to their spot in the parking garage, and Matt met Joe on the curb. Another average day of them pretending nothing was wrong again. Frank was sitting at his desk typing up a report when his cell rang. He frowned at the name on the screen. Maria never called him while she was on a shift in the ER.

“Hey,” he said, ignoring the nerves in his stomach.

“Frank,” she breathed into the phone heavily. He could hear the tears in her voice, and Maria was not a crier.

“What happened? Are the kids okay?” he demanded.

“The kids are fine… But you need to get here quick. They just brought Matt in from a car accident.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

Sitting beside Matt’s hospital bed was almost an out of body experience. Frank kept his eyes locked on his husband’s battered and bruised form, hooked to machines and deathly pale. He was afraid to even reach out and touch Matt’s hand when he came into the room for the first time because touching meant it was real. It had taken him almost fifteen minutes to work up the courage to curl his fingers around Matt’s limp ones, but now that he had, it was almost like his life line. In the background there was the whoosh of the ventilator and the beeping of monitors, but the loudest sound in the room was silence. He couldn’t get over how it wasn’t even really Matt’s breath that he was listening to. It was almost as if someone had made a lifelike doll and placed it in the bed; he was having a hell of a time convincing himself that Matt was really in there. Running down the list of injuries in his mind, it was a miracle that he’d survived: punctured lung, ruptured spleen, four broken ribs, dislocated left shoulder, broken left wrist, hairline fracture to his left ankle, and ten stitches above his brow.

“Hey kid,” a gravelly voice said from behind him. Frank had been so focused on Matt that he hadn’t heard Jack come in. The former boxer looked like he’d gone the distance with an army. His eyes were blood shot and so heavily bagged, and he was still wearing the sweats that he’d shown up to the hospital in nearly a day before. He was the one person that he was sure was every bit as fucked in the head as he was at the moment, but he was doing a damn better job of hiding it than Frank was. Clapping the younger man on the shoulder, Jack said softly, “c’mon let’s step outta here for a minute and grab a cup of coffee.”

Shaking off the touch, Frank turned his gaze back to Matt. “Nah. I’m good. You go.”

“You are mistaking that for a question, kid. Get off your fucking ass and come with me,” Jack commanded with a look in his eye that even now Frank wouldn’t think of crossing.

He grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and followed his father-in-law out of the ICU ward. Neither of them said anything as they made their way to the cafeteria. It was just after five in the morning and there wasn’t much to choose from even if Frank had been hungry. He grabbed a cup of shit coffee and tried in vain to push away the protein bar that Jack shoved into his chest. They took a seat in the nearly abandoned room, and as he sat, the exhaustion of the past day seemed to be falling on him.

“You look like I was back when Matty got hurt the last time,” Jack said quietly. “I was so fucked that I didn’t know which end was up. My boy was hurting, and they didn’t know what the fuck had come out of those barrels. First they said he would see again and then… you know. Only thing that kept my ass together was knowing that I was all he had back then. My shit didn’t matter, because my son needed me. Don’t get me wrong, Matt needs you now. He’ll need you when he wakes up in hell, and he’ll need you through ever step of the way ahead of him. But you aren’t alone in this, Frank. Let me shoulder some of this too because I know what it’s like to be two fucking seconds away from falling apart.”

“What do you want me to say, Jack?” Frank demanded. “You heard what the cop said about the fucker that hit them. He didn’t slow down at the god damned red light...he sped up! If it wasn’t for Joe… God, if it wasn’t for Joe...”

Frank couldn’t even say the words. Truth was that if Joe hadn’t swerved a split second before impact, he would have been visiting Matt in a fucking cemetery. The kid had saved Matt’s life. His husband had almost died—still could if there were any complications. If the truck driver hadn’t been DOA, he would have been dead the moment Frank got a hold of his sorry ass.

Reading his mind, Jack nodded solemnly. “I know. But Matt’s alive. The surgeon said the procedure went fine, and they should be able to remove the vent once he is out of sedation. My son is stronger than either one of us. You need to go home, get a shower and an hour or two of sleep. Let me sit with my boy for a while.”

“Fine,” he grumbled in agreement after a moment. If it had been anyone else, he would have told them to go fuck themselves, but Jack Murdock was one stubborn son of a bitch, and every so often the old man just happened to be right. He would need to be strong for Matt, and he couldn’t do that running on fumes.

On the way out, Frank swung by the nurse’s station on Joe’s floor. Thankfully, he saw a familiar face filling out a chart as he walked by. Claire Temple was one of Maria’s best friends, and one hell of a woman in her own right. She looked him up and down without much surprise.

“You look like shit. I knew you wouldn’t go home like Maria told you to,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Frank shrugged. “I’m running home now for a while. Thanks for taking Max over to Maria’s place for me.”

“Honestly, it wasn’t a problem, but why do I have a feeling you are going to ask me something that would actually be a HIPPA violation?” Claire quirked a raven brow at him, daring him to say she was wrong.

“I just want to know how he’s doing,” he pleaded. “You don’t have to tell me anything specific.”

With a heavy sigh, she rolled her eyes and motioned to the end of the hall. “Last door on the right. When I made my rounds, he was awake and watching TV. Ask him yourself, but if anyone asks...you just saw the light on his room when you walked by. And don’t say you fucking owe me one.”

Frank gave her a wry smile as he walked away. “I owe you one, Claire.”

True to her word, the light was on and Joe was wide awake. He had a hell of a shiner and cast on his right forearm, but otherwise he looked like he was doing all right. His gaze immediately shifted from the television to Frank the second he walked through the door. His eyes were wide with panic, as if he feared the worse. “M..Ma...M...” he stuttered uselessly. Frank knew the more upset he was the worse his speech got, and immediately held up a hand.

“Matt’s hanging in there,” he said. “And everyone knows, he made it because of you.”

Joe’s green-eyed gaze stared him down for a long moment. “N...no acc...accident.”

The words made Frank’s gut clench because he knew Joe was right. This wasn’t an accident. The agent in him had known from the second he’d talked to the cops. Rage like nothing he’d ever felt had been coursing through his veins, but he knew that the moment taking care of Matt was his first priority. Afterward, he would do everything in his power to make sure that who ever had put the truck driver after him would pay dearly. They had fucked with the wrong man. Pushing aside the thought, Frank forced himself to shrug. “We’ll get it sorted out. Just worry about healing up, kid.”

Joe didn’t seem to buy it, but nodded anyway. He made a shooing motion towards the door. “Sleep.”

Finally taking the advice that he’d been given numerous times, Frank made it home just after seven—almost twenty four full hours after leaving the day before. He didn’t bother tucking his shoes away as he kicked them off in the front entryway. Matt wasn’t going to be tripping over them, and there was no danger of Max eating them. The apartment that he’d come to think of as home felt like just another room. He downed orange juice straight from the carton and then began shrugging his clothes off and tossing them on the back of the bar chairs. The bedroom door was open and he could see their bed mocking him from where he stood. He’d be damned if he’d spend a minute in between those sheets without his husband beside him. Falling into a heap on the couch, Frank used the technique he’d taught himself overseas and tried to clear his mind. Eventually he was able to fall into a half-sleep, but even that didn’t seem quite right.

He woke a little later to the ringing of his phone. Reaching out still not full awake, he accepted the call without even looking at the ID. “Castle,” he croaked, trying to pull his thoughts together.

“Morning, sunshine,” Jack said sounding decidedly better than the last time they’d talked. “Matt’s awake. They’re taking the tube out now.”

“Fuck!” Frank swore sitting straight up. “I never should have left. I am putting on clothes and coming right out.”

“Matt will tell you himself that you did exactly what you should have done when you get here. Do my boy a favor and get a shower. He is in enough misery without having to smell your nasty ass.” Jack let out rough chuckle and hung up the phone without waiting for Frank to argue.

“Fuck!” he said again to the empty apartment.

Of course, it figured that Matt would wake up when he was gone. He eyed the clock on the wall and had to admit that the four hours of sleep had helped more than he’d ever say aloud. Grudgingly heading to the shower instead of the door, Frank made a mental list of things to bring with him for both himself and Matt. Anyone who knew Matt knew that convalescing would not go over well with him. Clean and with a well stocked dufflebag, he was on his way back out less than twenty minutes after getting the call.

By the time he made it back to the hospital, they had moved Matt to a room on another floor and had him sitting slight up. With the horrible machines disconnected, he looked more like himself… albeit a fucked up version. The unbruised side of his face quirked up the minute Frank stepped through the door. “Hey there,” he said weakly.

“Hey yourself, Red.” Frank had to hold himself back from launching himself at Matt and enfolding him in his arms. He wanted to promise that nothing would ever hurt him again. Right then, Frank wanted a lot of things, but he forced himself to set the bag aside and give his husband a delicate kiss. “You scared the fuck out me.”

“I have to say it wasn’t exactly fun for me either,” Matt joked. He started coughing as soon as he laughed at his own joke. Instantly Frank was holding up a cup of water to his lips, which he accepted.

“I’m assuming the drugs they gave you took enough of the edge off that the kind of pain you are in now is what the rest of us would be in unmediated,” Frank grumbled as he set aside the nearly empty cup.

“I asked them to give me the minimum,” the blind man said glumly. “I can’t control my senses when I’m too drugged. The last time I was screaming every time the meal cart went down the hall two floors away.”

“Anything I can do for you?” Entwining his fingers through Matt’s uninjured ones, he kissed his husband’s knuckles.

“Just sit with me for a bit.”

Unable to hold it back anymore, Frank let a few of the tears that he’d been holding back fall. “God, I love you, Matt. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.”

“I love you, too. And I’m still here in one slightly mangled piece.” Matt raised Frank’s hand to his lips. “It’s going to take a lot more than an accident to take me away from you.”

The word “accident” sent a cold shiver straight up Frank’s spine, but he managed to keep it together. There would be a time for that. This wasn’t it, but god damn if it wouldn’t be soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

Karen tugged at the ribbon that belted her sundress just beneath her bust nervously and looked up at her refection for about the twentieth time. The pale blue, flowered garment was not professional in the least, even with the thin gray jacket she’d tossed on over it, but it was just about all that fit her these days. She’d tried every pencil skirt and pair of trousers she owned. Nothing fit right, and even the things that did fit only drew attention to the very thing she was trying to ignore. She ran her hands through her hair. “You can do this,” she said to her reflection.

Grabbing her resume off of the counter, she tossed it in her bag and headed for the door. This was the ninth place she’d applied in the last week and a half—and the only one that still had “apply in person” in their old fashioned newspaper ad. She wouldn’t have even bothered to look at the newspaper a few months ago, but with her internet turned off and the fear of going over her data on her already overdue cell bill, the newspaper was the best option for her. Even the job itself was something. that she would have scoffed at not so long ago, yet here she was walking into the proverbial lion’s den. Thankfully it wasn’t too far from her apartment, and she tried to bolster her confidence by telling herself how much money she’d save on transportation. Within a fifteen minute walk, she was staring at the peeling paint lettering above the door to Fogwell’s gym. She didn’t realize just how long she was staring until a voice came from behind her.

“Door works best if you open it, honey,” a gruff male voice chuckled behind her. The endearment made her cringe. It was the kind condescending shit that she’d heard all of her life from men who assumed that because she was a thin blonde that she was weak.

Spinning on her heel, she turned to see a tall man in his fifties giving her a wry half grin. He was good looking in a rugged sort of way with salt and pepper light brown hair and blue eyes surrounded by lines. His t-shirt stretched over a well muscled chest and thick arms with the name of the gym emblazoned across it. “I wasn’t sure if you were open,” she lied.

“I unlock the place usually about five. Most of the guys here like an early work out if they can swing it,” he held open the door for her and followed her inside. “But I doubt you’re here for boxing lessons.”

“Are you, Mr. Murdock?” she asked timidly. She really hoped he wasn’t.

“I’m Jack. Mr. Murdock’s been in the ground nearly thirty years, and I never liked my son-of-a-bitch father anyway.” The grin widened and he offered her a hand that made hers look like a child’s.

“I’m Karen Page. I saw your ad in the paper,” she said, wasting no time pulling her resume from her bag.

“So you wanna work in this dump, eh” Jack asked, motioning to the dingy looking gym. He wasn’t far off when he called it a dump. The walls were concrete block painted white and gray with old pictures lining them. The ring in the center looked like the mat had at one point been blue but had since faded. The only things that looked even remotely new were the bags hanging from the ceiling and a large flat screen tv mounted off to one side. The only good thing that she could say about it was the gym looked relatively clean. There weren’t any cobwebs hanging from the lighting above and the whole place smelled like some kind of cleaner.

She held her head high when she turned back to his gaze. “This isn’t a dump.”

“Don’t say that til you see the office.” Jack let out a laugh that echoed through the room. He started to the back corner of the room where a little office jutted out of the wall, like it had been added as an afterthought.

The minute he opened the door the freshly cleaned scent she had noticed vanished. The “office” barely held a desk with a chair on either side of it and a large shelving unit that probably was holding up as much dust as it was trophies and books. A small fridge was stacked high with empty food wrappers, and she couldn’t help but notice the poorly hidden bottle of whiskey in the corner. What was glaringly obviously missing from the room was a computer. She tried not to wrinkle her nose at the place, but Jack had been right to call this place a dump. He took a seat in the creaky old chair behind the desk, and she took the folding chair in front of it.

“Well?” he prompted, quirking a brow at her.

“This...” she began looking for a way to put it kindly, before changing her mind. “This is _definitely_ a dump.”

He opened her resume and thumbed through it quickly. “Looks like you’ve got experience working for the big boys. How come you’ve stepped down a few classes?”

“My last job ended kind of poorly.”

“Poorly” was putting it lightly. It didn’t cover the humiliation, fear, and complete hell that Union Allied had caused her. The word didn’t do justice to any of it. Not Daniel’s death, not the two days in a jail cell crying, not what had been done to her while she was supposed to be in “safe” hands with the police, and certainly not the aftermath. “Poorly” was a shitty way to put it all, but at the moment she was hard up for a better one.

“That bad?” Jack asked with a softening expression. The tossed the resume in the trash. “Then we won’t talk about any of that shit. How about we go question for question then we decide on this?”

“Sure,” she replied cautiously.

“Did you ever steal from an employer?”

She shook her head. “Why is the rest of the place so clean and your office such a mess.”

“It messes with the kid who takes care of the place for me. He hates that I won’t let him in here, but won’t say it.” His lips quirked up mischievously. “You think you could work like this?”

Pausing and staring that the thick layers of dust and grime, she tried to force herself to say yes. She needed this job, but she had a feeling Jack already knew her answer. “No,” she answered, truthfully. “I’d have to clean it.”

“C’mon,” he said, suddenly getting up and heading for a set of stairs hidden around the corner. “The gym’s main office is upstairs next to the weights.”

Letting out a deep breath, she rolled her eyes and followed. This was an actual office! Though the room wasn’t much bigger than the one down stairs, there were two small desks positioned in an “L” shape with actual computers, a row of filing cabinets, and a small shelving unit with neatly arranged books. There wasn’t even so much as a speck of dust to be found.

“Why did you let me think I would be working in your office?” she asked, irritated.

He smiled and shrugged. “I wanted to see if you were desperate enough for a job to lie to my face.”

“What makes you think I’m desperate?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You’re here and not in the lobby waiting to be interviewed by a company with more than ten employees,” he said dryly. “Mrs. Cutter comes in on Mondays. Think you can start this week and let her show you the ropes?”

Still in shock that shock that she was finally employed again, Karen nodded mutely.

“She’ll do all the paper crap with you—so don’t expect me to handle much of any of it. Between you and my son, Matty, I stay out of that stuff,” he continued on, not noticing that she was actually on the verge of tears with elation. Jack stopped just as the first tear fell, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You all right?’’

Nodding again, she struggled to swallow back her emotions. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Trust me, honey,” he said looking her dead in the eye. This time the endearment didn’t bother her in the least. “I know _exactly_ how much it means. You aren’t the only one to ever get caught neck deep in shit.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” she laughed hysterically, crying at the same time.

Strong arms wrapped around her and for the first time since this mess began, she was actually being comforted. Somehow it made her cry harder. It didn’t matter that she’d known him less than half an hour, she laid her head on his shoulder and just let it out while he rubbed her shoulders. A familiar ache for her own family began to gnaw at her forcing her to push away. There was a large wet spot on his shirt, but Jack didn’t seem to mind.

“Joe, go grab the lady a cold towel and a bottle of water from the cooler,” he called out.

From the corner her eye, she noticed a younger man rushing off to do as he was told. She hadn’t even noticed anyone else in the room. It hit Karen hard that she’d been bawling like an infant in front of two strange men. “I’m okay,” she murmured, feeling heat rushing to her cheeks.

“Nah,” Jack said, pulling one of the office chairs around for her. “Nothing wrong with a good cry from time to time.”

“Don’t you have any clients to worry about right now?” she asked. She’d say anything right then to deflect the conversation.

He shrugged and wiped a hand across his face. It was if the years that he’d worn so easily a few minutes earlier suddenly caught up with him. “Canceled them for the day. Have a few guys coming in to do some solo work outs and a couple more working with different instructors, but I had to call them all off. My son is getting out of the hospital today at some point, and I want to help my son-in-law help get him settled once that call comes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Will he be okay?”

“Thank, Christ, yes. It was touch and go for a bit, but my boy’s ten times the fighter I ever was. He’d gonna be bitching up a storm for a while during the mending, but he’ll be fine.” Jack smiled. “Actually, the kid I sent to go get your water saved his life. He is one damn fine driver, and a godsend to boot.”

As if he had heard his name, Joe appeared again—somehow almost seeming to come out of nothing, he was so unassuming. He smiled shyly and held out the water and the cool towel. She took a quick look at him while she accepted them. Like Jack, he was handsome, but in a completely different way. He was thin, but athletic built with intelligent green eyes thickly lashed by gold fringe. A scar trailed one side of his face and there were a few fresh stitches on the other. She also caught sight of a cast on one arm. Probably, from the crash, she mused.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile.

He nodded and then bit his lip. “W...Welcome,” he stuttered.

“Joe, this is Karen Page. She’s gonna be taking over for Mrs. Cutter,” Jack said with a wide grin.

“G..g...good.” Relief washed over Joe’s face.

Jack chuckled. “Mrs. Cutter and Joe never really got along.”

Rolling his eyes, Joe scrunched his face in disgust, making them both laugh.

“Sounds like I’ve got big shoes to fill.” Karen took the cap off the water and took a long drink.

“More like a big pain in the ass,” the older man grumbled. “Joe, why don’t you go get your rental and take Karen home?”

“I can walk,” she protested, but Joe was already gone before she could even get the words out.

Jack shook his head. “It’ll give the kid something to do other than try and climb ladders on one leg and with one good arm. I keep telling him to take some time off, but he’s too bull headed for that.”

“I’m assuming the arm and stitches are from the car accident, but what about...” her voice trailed off, and she immediately regretted bringing it up.

“Traumatic brain injury from overseas. He was an army medic, and his Humvee got blown to bits. Lost his leg and the ability to form words properly. But don’t let that fool you, he isn’t slow. Kid’s got more brains in one pinky than I ever had in my thick skull.” Jack grinned. “You’ll get to the point where you understand what he means even when he can’t get the words out. He certainly had some colorful gestures for me this morning when I tried to get him to leave.”

The car ride back to her apartment was a bit awkward. Karen had never been around someone like Joe before, and even though he smiled at her, she had the feeling he wasn’t exactly comfortable around her either. He dropped her off and even held open her door for her like some kind of gentleman from an old movie. She thanked him again before hurrying inside. From the building’s front door, she watched him drive away wondering just what she had gotten herself into at Fogwell’s Gym.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

Matt Murdock may have been the most obnoxious patient in the history of the world; Frank was almost sure of it by the end of his first full day back home. The hospital had only kept him for another five days after he woke up, and Frank wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t because Matt had annoyed the shit out of them so much they no longer cared if he lived or died. He had met stubborn men before—may even be one himself—but Matt took things to a whole new level. He’d fallen twice insisting that he was fine to walk with a single crutch, nearly ripped out several stitches scratching, and adamantly refused to set aside his work even when he could barely stand the pain of typing with his hand in the cast. Even Jack couldn’t do a damn thing with him. The boxer had thrown in the towel after helping his son up off of the floor only to be thanked and then told to back off in the same breath. On his way out, Frank was pretty sure he’d heard Jack mumbling something about being damned glad he never married. Still, Frank was damn glad his husband was home.

After helping Matt get ready for bed, the pair laid down together for the first time since the whole thing had began. It felt like a physical weight had been lifted off Frank’s chest. He rolled over on his side and kissed Matt’s temple.

“It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been here,” he murmured.

“I know you didn’t sleep while I was gone. I’m sure your back feels like hell,” Matt replied with that half cocked smile of his. As much as Frank didn’t like thinking about it, his husband sure as hell was avoiding openly admitting how close things had really been. That charming grin of his couldn’t fool him.

Letting out a deep sigh, Frank tried to put his thoughts together into words. “Listen, Red, I’ve had a lot of time on my own this last week to think. When I think about what almost happened...When I think about all of the things that we wouldn’t get to share, it about kills me. I was so fucking scared, Matt. I don’t think I could survive in a world without you. I don’t think you realize that.”

“I love you, Frank Castle. I may not be the best person to be around for a while, but I am thankful for every second we are together. And I do realize how scared you were. I think about the what if’s every time you walk out that door and go chasing mafia thugs or the cartel.” Gingerly shifting as close as he could to Frank, Matt reached out and ran his fingers along Frank’s jaw. “But my love for you outweighs my fear. I would rather have every second I can get with you that waste a single one of them being scared.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one cheering you up?” Frank kissed the tips of Matt’s fingers.

“Give me a week or so and I’ll be more than willing to take any ‘cheering’ you feel like doing.”

Chuckling, Frank rolled over and turned out the light. “I will become a one man cheering section the minute the docs give you the go ahead, Red.”

The next morning saw more of the same troubles that had begun the day before. It took Frank nearly manhandling Matt into the wheelchair to get him into the living room, and once he was in the living room the bickering started.

“I don’t see why it matters if I do the god damned dishes now or if I wait until there is a full sink and load them into the dishwasher then,” Frank grumbled as he obstinately dropped their empty oatmeal bowls into the sink.

“Really?” Matt sighed. “You can’t smell it? God, I swear I could smell rotting food in my dreams. I know you don’t have a nose like mine, but that is pretty rank. You have at least three days worth of dried up ramen and canned ravioli on those plates in there. If you would stop being my damn mother for a minute, I would just do them.”

“Yeah, and about kill yourself to prove you can do it.”

Matt frowned and pushed himself half up off of the couch. “I’m hurt, Frank. I’m not a child. I’m not an invalid. Just get the god damned crutch and help me up.”

“Not on your life, Red. I am not going to help you land yourself right back in that hospital bed,” Frank growled. He stomped to the sink and shoved open the dishwasher. “I am doing the fucking dishes now. Happy?”

Tossing a towel over his shoulder so hard that it nearly snapped, Frank slammed the dishwasher door open and began haphazardly tossing things in. He knew that Matt’s hyped up senses would probably pick up that he was shoving shit in at random and without rinsing it, and he almost hoped he would say something about it. Thankfully, the pain meds kicked in and he seemed to drift off with his headphones in leaving Frank in peace. Just after slamming the door shut and starting the dishwasher, a knock came to the door.

Jack and Foggy had both spent as much time as they dared visiting the day before, and Maria had agreed with Frank’s assessment that maybe it would be better for the kids to see Matt when he looked less like an extra from an episode of Walking Dead. He wasn’t sure who else would pop by unannounced much less make it by the front desk without the security guard ringing. He opened the door to see an elderly Hispanic woman clutching a casserole. At first he thought she may be at the wrong apartment, but then she pushed up to her toes and peered behind him.

“This is Senor Murdock’s home?” she asked in heavily accented English.

“Yeah,” he said stepping aside. “I’m his husband Frank.”

She smiled widely. “Elena Cardenas,” She held out the casserole dish. “For you.”

“Uh..Gracias,” Frank said, desperately trying to remember any of his Spanish classes. The only thing that game to mind was “ _cervesa”—_ which didn’t exactly fit the bill. Instead, he motioned her inside. “He’s asleep now.”

Mrs. Cardenas stepped into the apartment, glancing around at the messy counters and laundry piled on the couch knowingly. She gave him a look over the top of her glasses, but said nothing as she walked further into the open living room and kitchen. When Matt’s sleeping form came to view, she gave a small gasp and crossed herself, muttering something to the heavens above. Her warm brown eyes met Frank’s gaze, and he swore it was like she somehow knew exactly what the two of them had been through. She laid a gentle hand on his cheek.

“You go,” she said firmly motioning to the door. “I stay and take care of...” With the wave of her hand she gestured to both Matt and the mess behind

“I don’t think...”

“Go!” she repeated. Her eyes that had been soft only a moment before lit with a stubborn fire that he hadn’t seen since his Nona passed nearly twenty years earlier.

“I should tell Matt...”

Elena’s hands went to her hips, and he was suddenly glad she didn’t have a wooden spoon in her hand. “No. He sleeps. You go.”

“All right, all right,” Frank muttered in defeat. He shoved the casserole in the fridge and grabbed a light jacket on the way out.

Matt had said that Mrs. Cardenas was quite a spitfire, but he’d never imagined that one little old Guatemalan woman could kick him out of his apartment within five minutes of meeting him. Funny part of the whole thing was that as Frank slid his keys into the ignition of his car, he realized that it was the first time he had left the house in almost two weeks that didn’t have a damned thing to do with Matt. He started the car without any real idea to where he was going at first. He drove out into the suburbs and roamed aimlessly at first, but then he ended up just a few minutes away from Maria’s house.

Before he was even out of the car, both kids were racing down the walk in the bare feet despite the chill in the air. Frankie launched himself at his father with enough force that he almost takes Frank off his feet. Lisa hung back just a bit with her arms wrapped nervously around her mid section as her little brother buried his face into their father’s collar.

“Is Papa Matt okay?” she asked finally when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. His little warrior has tear pooling in the corners of her wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Frank replied softly. “Papa Matt’s doing good, baby.”

“Can we see him?” Frankie asked, still not untucking his face.

“Soon. Buddy, Papa Matt still needs to rest up so he can get better.”

Maria had appeared at some point the door way and was watching them with that expression he used to see when he fucked up back when they were married. “C’mon, kiddos. Let’s get back in where it’s warm and let Daddy get a cup of coffee.”

Following his ex into the house, Frank set Frankie down and watched as the kids scurried off to the living room. He didn’t doubt one bit that even years after the divorce that the two of them could still feel when the grown ups needed to “talk.” He hated that this was part of Maria’s and his legacy for them, but it was it was. That was a battle he’d fight another day. For now, he walked the familiar path into the kitchen that used to be his and watched Maria pour him the promised coffee.

“So what happened?” She pulled herself up on the counter—it was one of those things that he used to hate when he was living here, but now it didn’t bother him much.

“I’m not even a hundred percent sure of that one myself.” Frank shrugged and launched into the whole long story. By the time he was done, the coffee in his mug was cold, but he took a long drink anyway. “So I just didn’t know what else to do...”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, Frank Castle, I want to take a fucking skillet to that thick skull of yours.”

“What?” he asked.

“Do you even know what the word ‘empathy’ means? Because it seems to me your husband could use some right now.” The look she gave him was nothing short of withering, but it had been used on him too many times to have its full effect.

“Matt always said right off the bat that he didn’t want any of that pitying bullshit.” Frank helped himself to another cup of coffee, and ignored the way those narrowed blue eyes still stared at him. “I offer to help, and he cusses my ass out for it. It’s not like I have a whole lot of options.”

“First, empathy and pity aren’t the same thing. Second: you have the bedside manor of a fucking of a bull.” Maria slipped off of the counter and laid a hand on his cheek. “As a nurse, I have learned that the worst patients are the ones who feel the most helpless. I know you’re a good man, Frank, and that you love him with everything you have, but maybe you aren’t what he needs right now. Maybe for once in your life you can let someone else take a little control of something. If he bitches about the dishes, fucking do the dishes. He wants to dry, wheel his ass up next to the sink with you. Let the man do something—anything to take his mind of off the shit sandwich he is being force fed right now. I don’t mean become a push over, but just give a little for once.”

He mulled over her words for a minute and drank his second cup of coffee slowly while she made dinner. Matt was probably one of the least helpless people he knew. Even if he didn’t have that extra little boost to his remaining senses, he was a fighter through and through. “You can’t do that,” weren’t words he took lightly. He would adapt and think the problem through, but he rarely gave up on anyone or anything. How could Matt think that Frank saw him as helpless? A little voice in his head echoed in his mind: _because you basically told him he was_.

“Fuck,” Frank muttered wiping absently at his eyes. “I’ve always hated it when you’re right.”

Maria flashed him a million watt smile. “I know, dear. That is one of a dozen reasons we’re divorced.”

By the time Frank got home, Matt and Mrs. Cardenas were seated on the couch together with some Spanish show on the television. The whole apartment smelled so good that his mouth watered at the mere thought of what must be in the oven. Mrs. Cardenas gave him a smug look over her should and murmured something to Matt that made him smile. It was the first time since the accident that Matt actually looked happy again.

“Welcome back,” Matt said with his signature lopsided grin. “Mrs. Cardenas and I were just about to eat without you.”

Dinner was even better than it smelled. When the meal was over, Frank didn’t argue when Matt and Mrs. Cardenas loaded the dishwasher. For being a gay man, Frank had to admit that he was certainly happy for the women in his life suddenly. He didn’t even raise so much as a brow when Mrs. Cardenas announced that she was going to be back the next day at eight. After she left, Frank shook his head and laughed.

“We got a housekeeper now, Red?”

Matt let out a hearty laugh. “It was either that or a surrogate grandmother. I had to at least get her to let us pay her for everything. Though to be fair, she kind of hired herself.”

Leaning in for a kiss, Frank crouched in front of Matt’s chair. “Think you can forgive me for this morning?”

“Only if you’ll forgive me, too,” Matt said with a heavy sigh. “I hate this so fucking much, Frank. I don’t mean to be an asshole. It’s just I’m crawling out of my skin. Foggy’s taking the bulk of my cases, Maria has the kids and Max full time, and you...you get to take care of me. All the while, I’m stuck here on my ass doing fuck all.”

“I’d be pissed, too. This whole thing fucking blows, and I am not arguing there. I know that I got a bit over protective earlier, and I know you’re not helpless—farthest thing from it actually—but right now you have to take care of yourself. I’ll try not to baby you, if you just try not to end up back in the hospital,” Frank bargained, kissing Matt’s undamaged hand.

“I think I can manage that.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

Frank went back to work nearly three weeks to the day from the accident. It had been long enough that it both felt good and foreign to walk into the office. Of course, a heap of files had accumulated on his desk and his email inbox was nearly at max capacity, but it was almost a relief to start sifting through the shit pile of humanity again. Once he started going through it all, he didn’t notice that time had been slipping passed him until a knock came to the door.

One of the new guys on his crew had wanted to talk about the odds of getting a conviction stick. It had been a minor case for the department—one that Frank only gave a fuck about because he had a hunch the guy knew more than he let on. Obviously, no one else in the office had thought much of it and handed it off to the lowest man on the pole. The kid was a slender black, Puerto Riccan with a smooth, dark complexion and a habit for moving around like a fucking hummingbird. Frank struggled to remember the kid’s name because he’d only been in the bureau a few days before his time off had started. The kid chattered on with both sides of the argument so convincingly that it didn’t seem he noticed that the older agent had stopped paying attention roughly two minutes into the conversation. When he finally did get to the point, he stared at Frank expectantly like Max did when he was waiting on his god damned nightly treat.

“Sounds like you’ve got your bases covered, Agent...” Blanking on the name, he fumbled through at least a dozen wrong ones in his head.

“Benitez,” the kid supplied with a grin. “Reynaldo Benitez. Everybody calls me Rey.”

Frank grimaced. “Sorry, Rey. Been kind of a messed up few weeks.”

“Right I mean with your wi… I mean, husband hurt, and then Agent Massaro dying and all.” Rey shrugged, not realizing that he had just dropped a bomb on Frank’s head, and started to continue on, “I’d probably forget, too.”

“Lou’s dead?” he demanded.

“Yeah, heart attack. His wife found him dead on the back porch when he slipped outside for a smoke. Damn shame,” the kid said shaking his head.

“Fuck,” Frank growled under his breath. “When did it happen?”

“Maybe two or three days after you left. We all took up a collection for his funeral. I thought maybe you knew about it and just weren’t close...” Rey rubbed at the back of his neck uncomfortable. “Sorry to be the one to break the news.”

Frank had a cold feeling in his gut that had nothing personal to do with Lou. “Nah. Don’t worry about it. I would have found out sooner or later.”

Eying the file in front of him, he suddenly had a feeling that he just couldn’t shake. He tapped his pen idly on the manila folder and tried to erase the thought from his skull. “You know who picked up his files?” Frank asked, more than a little sure he already knew. “Seems like a shit job to me.”

“That’s me,” Rey confirmed with a roll of his eyes. “Ninety percent of it is bullshit conspiracy theories and nickel and dime shit no one is going to give a flying fuck about.”

Frank leaned back in his chair and took a sip of hours old coffee, casually giving Rey a once over. Of course, like most agents fresh out of training, he still had that enthusiasm that bordered on excitement. Even the ones who had seen some heavy shit before seemed to think that being in the FBI was akin to being a fucking superhero. It wouldn’t take long for something to come along and knock that shine right off of them. Reynaldo Benitez was no different. He probably looked at Frank and saw the Punisher—whoever that was. Maybe Frank should have felt bad about using that against the kid, but he didn’t.

“Well,” he drawled carefully, “I’m almost done here for now. How about we order a pizza and take a look together? Might be something worth looking at mixed in with all that shit.”

Just as he’d thought, Rey jumped at the chance and before long the pair were ankle deep in Lou’s files—complete with paranoid coding system and colored tabs with no writing or connections. At first glance, it was exactly as Rey had called it, metric fuck ton of theories and small shit. Thankfully, Frank had enough experience with Lou’s personal brand of crazy to make at least some sense out of it. He poured over file after file before handing them off to Rey and telling the kid where to send it off too. It didn’t take long for any agent in the organized crime unit to know that a small string to pull on could sometime unravel a whole fucking run. Maybe the agents he shipped the files off to would be grateful and maybe they would toss them on the stack of a million other things they were looking into. Either way, it didn’t matter to Frank. He was getting what he needed one page of chicken scratch note at a time. If Rey noticed the small pile Frank was sliding things off too, he didn’t mention it a first. It wasn’t until he saw Frank grab a pen and circle something that he seemed more interested in the work than the pizza.

“Does ‘MM’ stand for something?” he asked, peering over the older agents shoulder. “Just looks like some kind of appointment to me.”

Frank shrugged. “Nothing that I know of. Then again, I have a couple of loose ends that might line up to it. By the way, you see Lou’s date book in this mess? That could rule it out for me.”

Rey grabbed what must have been his fifth slice and shook his head. “No date book. Nothing personal in any of this shit. I wouldn’t have even known this guy was married from the look of his desk.”

“You married? Dating? Got a dog?” Frank asked, grabbing a piece for himself before the extra large pie was history.

“Engaged,” the kid answered.

“You keep a picture on your desk?”

Rey nodded between bites. “Gotta couple.”

“You do this shit long enough, you’ll find maybe you don’t want her looking back at you while your reading a morgue report on some poor errand boy that got run through the wood chipper for talking out of turn or some shit. Maybe you’ll find yourself taking your wedding band off because you don’t want it to remind you that you don’t deserve her anymore. Then again, maybe you’ll be that lucky guy that gets to believe it when he tells himself he is only here to make the world a safer place. There are a lot of maybe’s in this line of work.” Frank stared Rey directly in the eye. “Don’t judge who someone is outside of this shit show by what they keep in their desk.”

“I get it,” Rey said solemnly, setting aside his pizza.

Frank folded up the file he’d tossed together and headed for the door. “I think you’ve got this from here. Find anything else that looks interesting feel free to bring it my way.”

Back at his desk, Frank finally let his calm mask slip. “Mother fucker!” he swore violently, staring down at the barely legible scrawl reading out: “MM 7:30.” Between the holes in Lou’s notes and the missing date book, he could still read the writing between the lines.He wished to Christ that he didn’t know in his gut who ‘MM’ was. It wasn’t until he was home that night that Frank even dared think too much further about the coincidence of Lou being dead and Matt almost being killed.

Once again, Mrs. Cardenas managed to make a dinner that would have normally have tasted amazing, but in his current mood, Frank couldn’t taste a damn thing. He shoveled the food into his mouth dutifully and tried his best too put on an act. It seemed to work well enough on a woman who’s grasp on English was better than his Spanish but a far ways away from fluent, but it didn’t fool his husband. From across the table, Matt kept cocking his head occasionally as if he was somehow using his voodoo shit to read Frank’s mind, but neither of them brought it up until after Mrs. Cardenas was gone.

“Bad day at the office?” Matt asked softly once the coast was clear.

“Any particular reason you didn’t tell me you met up with Lou?” Frank demanded, ignoring the question.

Matt frowned. “Because I didn’t. He called me asking if I had some time to meet him a couple of days before the accident, then canceled all of a sudden. Did he say something about the case?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Frank sank down into the couch beside Matt. Knowing Matt, none of this conversation would be easy, and he needed to steel himself for what was going to come. He thought of a dozen ways of deflecting from the truth, but ultimately decided there was no way around it.

“Lou’s dead,” he said flatly. “He left behind a shit ton of notes about a whole lotta nothin’ and conveniently dropped dead of a heart attack two days after someone tried to kill you.”

“You’re not implying...” Matt trailed off.

“The fuck I’m not,” Frank growled. “You mean to tell me that you think it was all just bad luck?”

Shaking his head, Matt cracked a dark smile. “Then I guess we’re onto something.”

“No.” Frank had to put physical distance between himself and his husband because he had the urge to shake the stupid out of him. “You are not onto jack shit. You stay the fuck the out of this, Red. This is something that get’s people killed! Already has. How the fuck can you think you should be involved in this shit?”

“Being the one who may or may not have an attempt on his life, don’t I get a say in this? Christ, Frank, I may have gotten a man killed. Don’t you think I have some responsibility here? Or do you think I should just shove a lid on this, so we can pretend like we don’t know someone is doing something worth killing over in Hell’s Kitchen?” Matt’s jaw was clenched in all of his lawyer glory.

“No, I am saying let me handle this, Matt. This is my work, not yours!” Frank knew that his husband couldn’t see him stabbing at the air with each word, but he did it anyways. Gesturing to the wheelchair sitting next the couch and the multitude of injuries. “Wasn’t all of this shit enough for you?”

“It’s not about who’s job it is, Frank. If anything what happened to me only makes me more a part of this. I am not going to let any of this scare me off from doing what’s right,” Matt said with his signature calm, logical tone. It was the tone that signaled that he was not backing down. Frank had heard it before, but this time he was not going to give in either, so he said the one thing in reply that he knew would cut right Matt.

“And you are selfish enough to want to bring another kid into this shit? You don’t think endangering Frankie and Lisa is enough?” he asked coldly.

The color drained from Matt’s face. “They can stay with Maria for a while. This has nothing to do with them.”

“I got a picture back in my office that I wish I could show you right now,” Frank said feel a cold rage building in his gut. “Some guy, his wife, and two little boys not any older than seven were all shot to shit in the middle of Central-fucking-Park by worthless fucking scum. I’m the guy who gets to stare at this family—at these kids with there guts spilling out and their faces torn off by bullets. I’m the one who gets to chase my fucking tail trying to find away to either put the ones responsible for this in the dirt or in the cell. I can say it’s my job! And I know for a fact that my kids aren’t in the clear on this. Unless you want to tell me that you are prepared to take this shit where it really needs to go, then back the fuck off!”

“This isn’t over,” the blind man said, aiming his gaze very close to Frank’s. “I stay out of it for the most part, but I know there is more to this than what I gave Lou. He was missing something that I may know. We are in this together, same as everything else in this life. I will follow your lead, and I will do everything within my power to protect _our children.”_

That night, neither man said much of anything to the other. They were civil, but they both knew that a line in the sand had been drawn. Unlike their disagreements on a multitude of things when it came to the law and justice, an alarm set on their phones to limit the amount of time they talked about it wouldn’t suffice.

Frank managed to fall into a fitful sleep. His dreams started off almost pleasant.

Him and Red were on a picnic blanket spread out right in front of the carousel the kids loved so much. Max was running wild with Lisa and Frankie chasing after him. Matt called the kids to come eats some lunch and the next thing he knew the world was exploding. He watched as a bullet shattered his husband’s skull, spraying brain matter and blood across his face. In a blind panic, he screamed for the kids, but was frozen into place as a storm of gunfire ripped through their little bodies like tissue. He watched them fall and heard their cries. There was nothing he could do suddenly it felt like the blanket was dragging him into the ground.

The macabre remains of Matt’s face was suddenly inches from his. All he could see was that face—no, that skull staring down at him with hollow empty eye sockets dripping with blood. The flesh had pulled away from the top teeth in a sick display. He tried to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t.

_“You couldn’t save us!”_ an eerie, hollow voice said from the skull. _“Why didn’t you save us?”_

_“_ I just couldn’t. It’s my fault,” Frank cried. “I couldn’t save them.”

“Frank!” At first, this new voice seemed to be coming from the skull, too, but then it became stronger as it continued to call. “Frank, wake up! You’re having a nightmare, Frank. Wake up!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A HUGE thanks to INTJMurdocks for being my beta and lending her awesomeness to the spicier bits of this story.

Chapter 6

Being useful again felt amazing. His wrist ached like hell with every movement, but each key stroke gave him a sense of purpose that he hadn’t felt since the accident. Matt smiled as he listened to the steady tap of Karen’s pen against the desk next to his. They’d been working in companionable silence for the better part of the hour, and he had to admit that the most recent addition to the Fogwell’s staff was a welcome departure from the last one. With Karen’s natural head for business and attention to detail, there wasn’t a whole lot that had fallen through the cracks while he’d been gone. He was able to fly through the finer financial details with ease. Accounting wasn't his forte but by mid-afternoon he was caught up on Fogwell's books. Pulling his earbuds out and leaning back in his chair to stretch as far as he dared, Matt let out a heavy groan.

“Where exactly did my dad find you again?” he asked with a laugh.

Karen’s breath stilled, and her heart rate went wild. “The front door,” she murmured, faking a light tone. “I kind of just showed up.”

“I’m glad you did,” Matt assured her. The tension drained out of her when he didn’t press further. “Dad has a tendency to do his books on napkins when I’m not around. I was half expecting to find the place in rubble.”

“Thanks. It just feels good to be working again,” she said with a sigh.

He grinned. “I know the feeling.”

“I wasn’t actually expecting to see you back to work so soon after what happened, truthfully,” Karen admitted shyly.

“I’m a Murdock. We’re built to take a beating and get back up, I guess.” He stood up from his seat and changed the subject. He didn't feel like discussing the accident. “It’s almost one, and I’m starving. How about you?”

“Oh…I… uh, I brought a salad,” she lied.

“What’s a salad compared to a meatball sub from Romo’s?” he sneered. “Besides, this is my way of bribing you to sneaking off to lunch with me without the mother hens. You saw the way my dad almost tried to carry me up the stairs, and if Joe keeps walking in front of the door to check up on me he’ll wear a rut in the floor.”

Karen giggled adorably. “Maybe Joe and Jack are a bit over-protective.”

Thankfully, they managed to sneak out without being noticed by either of the two men. Karen’s hesitance slowly melted as they walked to the pizza parlor a few blocks away. She kept her pace slower than what was probably usual for her but Matt suspected it was due more to his walking cast than his blindness. Her reticence genuinely didn’t seem to come from being nervous around a blind man but more from natural habit. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her in the past. His dad had mentioned that she was in a rough situation and pregnant—not that they were supposed to have picked up on either fact. Along with the ability to take a beating, he’d inherited his father’s habit of caring a bit too much when it seemed no one else did.

“There’s not even a sign out,” Karen muttered in awe as they reached their destination. “If I couldn’t see people eating pizza at the counters, I would have thought you had the wrong corner.”

“I know this neighborhood well enough to walk it with my eyes closed,” he joked. She rewarded him with a courtesy chuckle. “Besides, you can’t tell me you don’t smell it.”

She took a deep breath in and let out a low sound of appreciation. Matt could smell the basil and garlic from the fresh batch of “gravy” old Sal cooked up every morning from blocks away. It didn’t surprise him that Karen’s stomach began grumbling right then.

As they walked through the door, the argument that had been going back and forth between the old man at the register and a longtime patron stopped suddenly.

“Sweet Christ, Matty, I thought one time gettin’ run over would’ve been enough for you!” Sal barked in his signature smoke roughened voice.

Matt laughed. “I guess I needed a reminder not to play in traffic, Sal.”

Clucking his tongue and muttering something in Italian, the shop owner turned his attention to Karen. “Look, doll, these Irish boys ain’t so smart. You’d better stay here with us.”

“How do you it’s not part of my devious plan?” she quipped, earning her a hearty laugh from about a half-dozen men.

“Just because you brought her, Murdock, lunch is on the house for the two o’ you,” Sal announced. “And if my Rosa wouldn’t come down from Above to beat me with that wooden spoon of hers, I’d be proposin’ for the second time in my life. What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Karen Page,” she replied. “And I wouldn’t want to make Rosa angry.”

Once they were seated on a park bench with their sandwiches a few minutes later, Karen finally seemed to relax. She finished her entire sub with such enthusiasm that Matt would have offered the rest of his if he hadn’t feared upsetting her. There was a tell-tale clopping as one shoe dropped off her foot then the other, and he could hear both heart beats from beside him fall into a restful pace. He was in no particular hurry to disturb either of them.

“He must have really loved her,” she mumbled quietly. “He has about a dozen pictures of her on the wall.”

“He still does—everyone who knew her does. She died of cancer almost fifteen years ago, but I can still remember how she used to look me over every time I walked through the door. She used to drop off a plate to our apartment anytime she worried my dad and I weren’t eating enough. I don’t think any of the neighborhood kids ever went hungry that Rosa Romo knew about it,” he said wistfully. “Every year on her birthday they hold a spaghetti dinner and raffle at the Sons of Italy club and donate the earnings to Cancer Society in her name.”

“I wonder what it must be like to have someone love you that much.”

The musing had been rhetorical, and he almost doubted she realized she’d said it aloud, but the words stuck with Matt for the rest of the day. Luckily, he didn’t see much of Karen after lunch, making the urge to ask more about her past less of a temptation. Everyone had their secrets—a truth Matt was more than aware of—and she deserved to keep hers a bit longer. The distraction provided by his monthly meeting with Joe was merely an ends to that means at the moment.

Since he’d started working for Matt and his father, Joe had also been something of a client of Matt’s as well. Joe was certainly intelligent enough to make his own financial decisions, but his inability to read left him at a serious disadvantage when it came to the simple act of paying bills and other miscellaneous tasks. Most of the veteran’s mail was sent to Matt’s office and scanned into his computer by his assistant. The audible version of the documents made things easier for both men, and enabled Joe to make his own informed choices with just a little more help from the lawyer. Thankfully, there wasn’t very much for them to review.

By the end of the meeting, Joe was fidgeting restlessly. Matt couldn’t help but notice that the majority of his attention was focused on the woman sitting across the office humming along to the radio as she worked. The vertebrae in Joe’s neck creaked ever so subtly as he turned his head every now and again. In the entire time he’d known Joe, he hadn’t so much as noticed him sneaking a peak at anyone—female or male. Judging by the slightly sped up heart beat and the smell of Joe’s sweating palms, it seemed that maybe Karen was closer than she thought to having someone care about her.

It wasn’t until they were safely in the car on the way back to Matt’s apartment that he ventured to bring any of it up. “Karen’s working out well with you and Dad,” he commented lightly.

“N...nice person,” Joe replied shyly.

“Dad said she is a really pretty girl.” Matt smiled slyly and listened carefully to Joe’s fingers drumming quickly on the steering wheel.

Joe let out a heavy sigh. “Too pretty. No more...talk.”

“Ok, I will drop it,” Matt agreed with a chuckle.

“Same….you and Jack. Same shit.”

Matt let out a hearty laugh and shook his head. “Low blow.”

At home, he let himself fall into a heap on the couch. Once again, Karen’s words crept into his mind. The biggest difference between himself and her was that Matt didn’t have to wonder what it felt like to be loved. He knew in his heart that Frank loved him every bit as much as Matt loved him in return. Frank’s kind of love was so fierce that at times it was almost overwhelming. He didn’t have much use for long, sentimental talks or the traditional type of romance. His best qualities were layered underneath curse words and a rough touch. Matt had always told himself that he wouldn’t change Frank for anything, but wasn’t that what he’d been asking for all along? He’d all but demanded that Frank not do the one thing that he showed his love through the most.

By the time Frank got home from work, Matt had rolled their arguments through his head like a tape on loop. When he heard Frank’s heavy footsteps down the hall and inhaled the scent of him closing in, Matt leaned against the wall of the foyer and waited for the familiar jingle of keys.

Frank didn’t seem surprised to find him there. “Did you miss me, Red?”

Matt said nothing. He leaned in and kissed his husband with all that aching passion built up in his body. He pushed himself against Frank and slid his tongue into his mouth, ignoring the harsh twinge of pain from his rib cage. Frank wrapped his arms around him and swept him off his feet. He braced Matt against the wall and slid his calloused hands down into Matt’s sweats , digging his fingers into the thick curve of his ass, and dragging his teeth down Matt’s stubbled neck.

Matt whimpered as Frank’s teeth sank into his skin. He reached for the buckle on Frank’s belt with shaking hands. “I need you in me,” he begged, but his hand was stopped by Frank’s stony grip.

“Fuck, Matt. I don’t want to hurt you,” Frank panted. He grabbed Matt’s jaw and pulled him in for a harsh kiss, leaving Matt whining into his mouth, teeth scraping against Matt’s lips until they tasted blood. Matt wrapped his legs around Frank’s waist until they could feel the shape of his cock trapped between them.

“You won’t,” Matt promised. He reached out with one hand and touched Frank’s face. “I need you more than anything else right now.”

Matt wasn’t quite sure how they got into the bedroom. Just that Frank kissed his body as he took off Matt’s clothes, paying special attention to his belly and hips and thighs until Matt reached out with one hand and drew Frank back to him.

It had been a long time, Matt realized, since they had held each other like this. Since he had had Frank’s hands on him, just touching him. Since Frank had thought about Matt and only Matt. And they lay there for a long, long time, kissing and kissing.

Frank’s hand traveled slowly down Matt’s back, curling his spine like a comma until his hand slid between the soft cheeks of Matt’s ass. He brushed the soft puckered skin and Matt couldn’t hold back the mewling noise that rose up from his throat. Frank’s hand twitched, encouraging him to turn over. Matt slid onto his stomach, his cock dragging on the silk sheets, and he ground down against the mattress.

Frank kissed the back of his neck. He mapped Matt’s spine with his lips and tongue, making his way down on his back before settling on Matt’s ass, kissing and biting the thick flesh while Matt moaned against the pillow. Then he felt Frank’s slick finger sliding into him and he let out a surprised yelp. He hadn’t heard Frank reaching for the lube. Frank grunted as Matt jerked around the slick digit, sliding in and out until Matt could hardly breathe for the ache building in his belly.

“You’re so fucking tight, Red,” he muttered in a desire filled growl. “I’m almost ready to come now.”

“Please, Frank,” Matt begged. The scent of Frank’s arousal was heavy in the air and breathing in the scent was sending him into a dizzying high.

“Please what?” Frank teased. He let his breath linger along the edge of Matt’s shoulder blade even as a second calloused finger slid into Matt’s asshole, so tight and cramped and _good_.

Nearly undone Matt clutched the headboard tighter for support as he grasped for any form of speech he could muster. “Please -- please, I need your cock inside of me. Please fuck me, Frank.”

“What if I want to play with you for a while?” Frank’s tongue made its way around the curve of his ear. His cock throbbed against Matt’s rear as those fingers worked in even further before pulling out again -- in and out, in and out, in and out, leaving Matt bereft and then filled, over and over and over again.

“I don’t -- I, I c-can’t --” the blind man managed to say between ragged breaths as his husband let his hand slip from one hip bone to the other, skimming just above his thatch of pubic hair.

“Then don’t. Go crazy for me, Red. Show me how much you want it.”

The headboard creaked violently as Matt arched his back against Frank, pleading for more. Letting out a sound that was more of a roar than actual words, Frank pulled his fingers out a split second before replacing them with his cock, driving _in-in-in_ , and Matt sobbed with every long inch, until Frank drew back just as slowly. It felt as if the entire world was coming to an end until he filled Matt back up again, sheathing his cock in Matt’s body up to the root. Their flesh slapped together with every thrust and Frank’s fingernails cut grooves into Matt’s skin, but it only made Matt want more. He leaned back and wrapped his arm around Frank’s neck, pulling him even closer. His husband’s heart pounded against Matt’s back, just out of sync with the slap of Matt’s cock against his belly.

Frank’s tongue found his ear again. He licked the shell, found the soft secret spot behind Matt’s earlobe before biting it. “I wanna make you come, Red,” he said hoarsely. “I’m gonna make you come just like this, okay?”

Matt let out a stuttering sob and nodded. Frank was so, so thick, claiming Matt’s tight ass completely, making Matt feel so utterly owned. He didn’t belong to himself when they were like this: he didn’t belong to himself until Frank was done driving his pleasure, getting everything from him.

Frank kissed his lips and then shoved him face first into the pillow, one hand in Matt’s dark hair and the other digging into his hip. Frank’s cock pistoned in and out of him. Matt had forgotten that Frank fucked like a machine, relentless and unfaltering with violent, unapologetic use of Matt’s body for his own gratification. Matt opened his mouth to tell Frank this, that he loved him for the punishing pace: but he only made it far enough to go, “Frah, ah, ah, _ah, ah, ah, AH_!” before he crested in long spurts. And Frank still _kept going_ , not even pausing as he groaned with pleasure at the sight of Matt’s cock emptying itself.

“Red,” he panted, “oh fuck, _Red!_ ” It was the only warning Matt got before Frank came inside him, filling him up more and more with each wet gush. They collapsed onto the mattress together.

Neither of them moved, until finally Frank put a hand on Matt’s side and pulled out. Matt disentangled himself and rolled onto his back, trying to ignore the pain making itself known. He didn’t want Frank to regret a single moment of their lovemaking and he tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible. Frank flopped beside him with a low grunt and tossed his hand over Matt’s stomach.

“I’m sorry, Red.”

“I’m not a child, Frank. I think I know whether I’m healed enough for sex,” Matt snarled, hackles rising.

“Not that, dumb ass.” Nudging him lightly, Frank brought himself up on one elbow and kissed Matt’s collarbone. “That was probably the one thing we’ve done right together since this mess started.”

Sigh, Matt drug a hand across his face. “Agreed. But we’ve been fighting so much lately that I’m not sure what else you could be apologizing for. We’ve both been assholes. I don’t want either of us to continue the trend by apologizing now. I feel like we’ve been keeping a damn scorecard recently.”

“Fair enough,” Frank affirmed with a chuckle. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you what I got from Lou’s desk. If you want to play junior detective, maybe we can give it a try together and make sense of this shit storm.”

“And tonight?”

“Tonight, we’re staying right here. I don’t think you’re ready for round two yet, but it feels like forever since we’ve just been together. Think you can handle that for a night?”

Matt smiled and nodded. He brushed Frank’s features with his hands, finding the outline of his cheek, so familiar and dear. He couldn’t think of a better way to spend the night.

  



	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 

_“Fuck the Owl. Fuck the King.”_

The words scrawled in Lou’s chicken scratch sat above a sketch that resembled a bird and a crown. Shaking his head, Frank took a long drink from his beer and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe the bullshit that made it into the margins of Lou’s notes. Mixed in with pertinent information from his cases were grocery lists and phone numbers for psychic hotlines. With each page from the stack, it seemed less likely that Frank would find a goddamn thing. It almost made him wonder if the timing of Lou’s death had been nothing more than a fucking coincidence. God knew the guy didn’t take good care of himself, and there hadn’t been an autopsy. Matt’s “accident” could have been connected to something else entirely.

But here was feeling deep in Frank’s gut that said otherwise.

From the other end of the couch, Max made a grunting whine. The pit nudged his massive head against Frank’s knee, demanding to be petted. His brown eyes reflected the frustration permeating Frank’s mood. Max made it perfectly clear the moment Maria dropped him off that he didn’t intend to leave any space between himself and either of his masters for quite a while. With Matt at his physical therapy appointment, that made Frank his current security blanket. Giving in, Frank tossed his file onto the coffee table and rubbed Max’s belly.

“Fuck the owl. Fuck the king,” he muttered to the oblivious dog beside him. “Sometimes I think you’d take more damned readable notes than Lou, buddy.”

Suddenly, Max’s head perked up toward the entryway and he wagged his tail. Frank chuckled as his _loyal_ companion abandoned him to stare lovingly at the door. He barked impatiently as the door opened. Rewarding the pit with head scratches, Matt smiled and set his cane aside.

“Glad someone’s happy to see me.”

Frank let out a snort. “I’m always happy to see you. I just didn’t want to get knocked on my ass by a canine cannon ball if I tried to greet you at the door.”

“I’ll let it slide this time, Mr. Castle.” Matt sank down on the couch alongside Frank and leaned into his husband’s arms. “I really do think that my therapist is actually some sort of sexual sadist, by the way.”

“You would know.” Kissing his husband soundly, Frank adjusted himself so that they were perfectly spooned together with just enough room for Max at their feet.

“Find anything new in Lou’s papers?” Matt asked.

“Fuck the owl. Fuck the king,” Frank repeated aloud for about the tenth time that day. “No clue what it means, but at least it isn’t a god damned grocery list.”

Matt’s brow scrunched up instantly. “The owl?”

“Know anything about owls?”

“Something about it sounds familiar, but I am not sure why,” he replied. “And I’m not sure about the ‘king’ part.”

Frank cast an annoyed glance at the stacks of papers on their coffee table. They had sifted and re-sifted through most of it for the better part of two weeks but were still at ground zero. At this point he’d love to toss them in the burn barrel at Maria’s place and move on. But something was staring back at him from within those papers, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t find it. As if he was reading Frank’s thoughts, Matt laid a hand on his cheek.

“We’ll figure this out sooner or later. In the meantime, I think they’ve forgotten about lil’ ol’ me for the moment, and that gives us a chance to look at all of the angles,” he said.

“You sound like you’re feeling pretty confident about this, Red. What if this has nothing to do with what happened to you? What if it’s something else that you stirred up?” Frank asked, voicing the little doubts that had crept into his head. “You’ve stepped on some toes out there. Can you honestly say that there’s not at least a few people who wouldn’t mind seeing you six feet under?”

Matt grimaced and shrugged. “I can’t think of any that would actually have the guts or means to actually hire someone to do it –especially knowing someone had to die in the process, I might add. Maybe when Jessica gets me more information on the truck driver we’ll have something, but until then… That’s another dead end for us.”

Frank didn’t bother mentioning that he had about as much faith in Jessica Jones as an actual detective as he did in Max as an astrophysicist. Matt had accused him of not believing in her skills because of her gender but the truth was that Frank didn’t trust the observational skills of a drunk. He knew enough about the woman to know that he wasn’t going to place all his chips on that bet. Hedecided that if she didn’t get them something tangible on the driver in a few days that he would have to call in some favors with the black and whites.

The pair didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about their current roadblocks. Maria dropped the kids off promptly and on time. They had visited a few times since the accident but it was the first time that all parties—and not just Matt—agreed that Matt was actually up to a full weekend. The second they were through the door, Frankie was on the couch next to Matt telling him about how he won an essay contest at school out of the entire second grade. Lisa, though, ran straight to her room with her bag with barely a ‘hello’ for either of her dads. Frank looked askance at Maria who just shrugged. He knew that look in her eye meant: “you figure it out.”

Following his daughter down the hall to her room, he was shocked to find the door not only closed but locked. He resisted the urge to break the damn thing off its hinges and knocked instead. “Yeah?” a sullen voice answered from within.

“Open the door, young lady. You and I are going to talk,” he replied, taking deep breaths and trying to remind himself that Lisa was just coming into ‘that age’ as Maria called it.

Lisa opened the door with a mutinous look in her dark eyes. “Do I have a choice?”

Frank didn’t answer immediately. As a man who had been married twice now, he knew a trap when he heard it. He sat on the bed and studied the changes in her room over the last few months. Her Monster High dolls had gone from being proudly displayed on her dresser to tucked away in the closet. The books stacked on her nightstand had gone from copies of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson to some kind of teen bullshit. It reminded him that she was changing into someone entirely new right before his eyes. He hated the sight of it.

“Want to tell me why you ran off so quick?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“You know Matt and I missed you guys a lot over the last couple months,” he said. Another shrug was all he got in return. “You gonna say anything at all?”

Lisa looked him dead in the eye and opened her mouth before snapping it shut again. She looked and acted more like him by the day, and part of him wished she’d taken after her mother just a little bit. The last thing this world needed was another hard headed Castle. Thinking back to how many fights he’d gotten into with his old man, Frank knew that this wasn’t the time to push her any further. He was about to leave the room when he heard her speak up.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, baby?” he prompted, turning on his heel.

“Papa Matt didn’t ever tell on me, did he?” she asked, tucking a section of blonde and pink hair behind her ear.

“Tell on you for what?” He tried to search his brain for anything at all that Matt had told him about Lisa, but nothing stood out. “What would he have to tell me?”

“I said something awful before the accident,” Lisa admitted. “When we were at the movies, I told Emily that I hoped Papa Matt would die or fall off the planet. And then the next morning...”

“Why did you say that?” Frank asked, settling back on the edge of the bed next to her.

Once more the shrug was back. “I dunno. Sometimes, I just wish you were back home with us and Mom. I love Papa Matt, and I don’t want him to die, but sometimes...”

 

“Sometimes, you wish things would go back to the way they were,” he finished for her. “Do you remember Grandma and Grandpa Castle at all?”

Lisa shook her head.

“When I was a kid, your Grandpa and Grandma used to fight like cats and dogs. All day, all night. They didn’t sleep in the same room from the time I can remember. Mom wasn’t exactly an angel, but I remember Dad saying some shit to her that I wouldn’t even say—and you know how I can get, right? Anyway, I was about your age when I asked my mum why she didn’t just up and leave him, you know? He was such a bastard to her, and it didn’t make sense to me that she’d stay. Know what she said?” he asked, with a dark smirk.

“But you aren’t like that,” she protested.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “Know what she said to me?”

“No,” Lisa answered finally.

“Said that good Catholics honored their marriage vows no matter what. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like bullshit. I promised myself right then that if I ever saw myself becoming like them that I’d change it.” He looked away, not able to face her serious gaze anymore. “I said somethings to your mom that sounded just like something the old man would’ve said. I’m not proud of it. It still cuts me up sometimes to think of how sorry I am for blaming your mom for me being unhappy. It took me leaving before I even knew the whole reason I was miserable. I could’ve come back then after everything settled down, but I just would’ve made your mom and I both unhappy. Do you really think you and Frankie would have been happy in a house like that?”

She looked at her hands thoughtfully. “I didn’t want you to be unhappy. I just wanted to be normal, I guess.”

“And having gay dads—one of them disabled to boot—isn’t normal?”

“Papa Matt’s great,” she said, looking all the more glum. “He’s so much fun, and he does stuff with me and Frankie even when you aren’t around. _I_ don’t mind that he can’t see, but sometimes when my friends bring it up like he’s some sort of freak or something it makes me uncomfortable. I love him the way he is, but it’s kind of the same as the divorce, you know?”

“I’m not going to tell you that Matt isn’t different. You’re old enough to see how his blindness is part of his life and ours too if we want to be close to him. Sometimes, not everyone is going to see that it’s just a part of who he is. There are people who are going to ask dumb questions or be rude, and yeah, it sucks. I can understand why sometimes you would wish he was normal.”

“But I like that Papa Matt is different! I love how he does the bagel trick and how he can hear things from like a million miles away. He makes me laugh and makes me feel special. I don’t wish he were different or that he wasn’t here.” With a heavy sigh of frustration, Lisa flopped back on the bed dramatically. “I just wish I didn’t feel like a freak all the time. I wish my life was just like everyone else’s, but I don’t want anything to change.”

Frank couldn’t stop the hearty laugh from erupting from his gut. “Sounds like you are as normal as they come, baby girl.

Lisa tossed a pillow at him. “But how can I talk to Papa Matt knowing that he heard me say that?”

“How do you know he did?” he asked, still pretending the kids didn’t know about Matt’s “gifts.”

His daughter groaned and rolled her eyes. “He hears, like, everything. He probably heard all of this! Papa Matt has some kind of superpowers or something. Frankie and I figured it out like a forever ago.”

“He probably could have listened in, if he wanted,” Frank admitted. “But Papa Matt believes in your privacy, and I know for a fact he’s pretty good at shutting things out when he wants too. If he heard you at the movies, I don’t think he would bring it up. But I think that maybe by apologizing to him and telling him you love him, you can set things right again.”

For the first time in a long time, Lisa smiled at him like she did when she was little. In that split second, it felt like he was “Daddy-the-Hero” again and she was still his little girl. He gave into the urge to pull her into a one armed hug. Her arms slipped around his chest instantly.

“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered.

In the morning, Frank couldn’t help but notice how Lisa sat close to Matt on the couch while he and Frankie made pancakes. It didn’t take super hearing to know all was forgiven between them. He could almost see the weight lifted from a his daughter. His heart swelled with pride at what a wonderful young woman she was becoming. If his life was some sort of feel-good movie, this would have been the where the camera faded to black on a happy note.

Frank’s life was not a feel-good movie.

In his back pocket, his phone buzzed with a text alert. The number wasn’t in his contacts, but he knew it wasn’t a misfire. The text displayed a list of numbers and letters. The first set was longitude and latitudebut the rest remained a complete mystery. He shoved the device back in his pocket and went back to making pancakes. If he was lucky, Matt was too caught up in his moment with Lisa to notice Frank’s blood pressure spike. He willed himself to focus on his son who was making sure that each pancake had the exact same number of chocolate chips.

He got the opportunity to slip away a few hours later when Matt pointed out that the movie they’d grabbed from a kiosk was almost due. Without any further explanation, he kissed his husband and kids goodbye before punching the coordinates into his phone. It ended up that the place was some sort of yuppie gym not too far away. The idea clicked into his brain that the rest of the message could be a locker number and combination.

Frank followed a gym member inside and slipped past the electronic turnstile at the door. He doubted so much as a single soul would notice him but just in case someone would watch the security tapes, he kept his hat low and his face pointed away from the cameras.

It felt like being on a mission overseas before the shit hit the fan. He could feel the heightened energy around him tickling at his senses. Some people would call it paranoia but it had saved his skin too many times for him to dismiss. From the corners of his eyes, he took stock of everyone around him. Work out clothes made it damn hard to hide a weapon and he ruled out just about everyone on the floor as a threat. But then he noticed her.

A redhead watched him from a step machine. She was doing her damnedest to pretend she was reading the magazine perched on the console, but he saw through it. She didn’t have the build of a hired assassin or soldier. Her type of willowy muscle didn’t usually lend itself well to combat. From across the room he gauged her to be about thirty or so, but he could be wrong. With a start she seemed to notice him watching her. Her movements were almost wooden as she collected her things and got off the machine. He could see that she was scared shitless of something or someone. Walking by him, she gave him a brittle smile and then slipped into the ladies’ locker room.

Frank wasn’t sure if the woman’s nerves were a good sign or a bad one, but he kept his hand close to the Glock hidden under his jacket as he went into the locker room. It didn’t take him long to find the locker in question and remove its contents. All that was inside was abag holdingordinary gym clothes. He threw the bag over his shoulder and walked out much the same way he came in. He didn’t dare rifle through the contents any further until he was safely in his car a few blocks away. Wrapped in a Patriots t-shirt was a manila folder. He dumped out a leather bound book and a few neatly folded notes.

_Frank,_

_I told Gloria to get this to you if I died. The cell she’ll use to contact you is disposable. Don’t try to get a hold of her. She’s going to get out of the city as soon as she’s sure you have everything worth anything that I’ve managed to put together. Leave my wife out of this shit. You, your husband, and I have kicked a fucking hornets nest. I can’t put it all together and I hope to God you can before anyone else gets hurt._

_Best wishes,_

_Lou_

_P.S. If you’re reading this, I’m dead; so fuck you for getting me into this mess. I’ll save you a spot in Hell._

Leaning his head against the steering wheel, Frank’s vision swam for a minute. This whole time, he’d been preparing for the worst and praying for the best. It was a good thing he had a shit ton of contingency plans waiting in the wings for a bad fucking day. Things were heading that way damn quick.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 

Matt’s first day back at work started much like any other with his assistant waiting for him by the elevator bank in the lobby. To outsiders she appeared to hover, but Matt learned long ago that Emilia thought of it as one more way to squeeze some spare efficiency out of their day.

She greeted him, the moment he stepped out the elevator. “Welcome back, Mr. Murdock.” Her light Jamaican accent brought a smile to his lips.

“It’s good to be back,” he replied earnestly as he took her offered arm. “How big is the pile on my desk?”

“There are three piles—in order of importance from left to right—and none of them are worth fussing over,” she assured him. Her idea of the amount of work “worth fussing over” had been a long standing joke between them. “Most of it you’ve already had in your inbox, but there are a few new things here and there. I kept your day clear of meetings for the most part to give you time to go over them.”

He sighed. “I know Jeri’s scheduled in there somewhere. The others?”

“Only one at ten o’clock. A Mr. Wesley—I tried to get him to reschedule, but he was rather...persistent.” The usual warmth in her voice drained away.

“In other words, he’s a pain in the ass,” Matt supplied. “Is he a client? Attorney?”

“You said it, sir, not me. He wouldn’t tell me much of anything. I get the feeling Mr. Wesley isn’t the kind of man used to being questioned.”

“Great.”

True to Emilia’s word the stacks on his desk weren’t all that much. Despite Foggy’s and even Marci’s insistence, he’d been able to keep the majority of his case load with only a few exceptions that hadn’t been able to be pushed back. He was thankful that he was able to do a good bit of work from his home office but that still left him scrambling to catch up. He spent his morning reading, dragging his fingers upon page after page. He barely registered Emilia slipping in and out to replenish his coffee and drop off additional files that he would need but hadn’t thought to ask for yet. It wasn’t until she knocked on the door frame that he realized how much time had passed.

“It’s almost ten, Mr. Murdock,” she reminded him lightly.

Matt didn’t even bother to confirm the time on his watch and instead began straightening his tie. “So you think this one will be on time?”

“Precisely on time,” she replied with a snort. “This one won’t bother making you wait to prove how important he is.”

“You’d make one hell of a lawyer,” he told her for the thousandth time. “A frightening one, actually.”

“You and I both know I wouldn’t have the patience. I’ll just let you do that part of the work and take the same pay as your junior partners.” She laughed but despite the her easy tone, they both knew it wasn’t a joke. Emilia was worth her weight in gold. Not even Jeri balked at the exorbitant amount of money they paid the woman.

Mr. Wesley arrived at exactly ten—not a second later. Matt could smell his expensive cologne and the starch from his freshly laundered shirt the second he stepped into the lobby. His steps were perfectly paced in his Italian made shoes and his watch ticked with the perfect precision of a high end brand. Even he could spot Wesley for what he was: a predator in human form. This guy was no one to mess around with and the feeling in Matt’s gut was something between excitement and nervousness. With a few female exceptions in his own company, it had been a long time since someone had really challenged him the way this man doubtlessly would. He picked up his phone and sent a quick voice text to Emilia telling her to wait a full twenty minutes before bringing in the usual refreshments for the client.

“Mr. Murdock, Mr. Wesley is here for you. Would you like me to send him in?” Emilia’s voice came across his desk phone less than a second later.

“Yes, please, Emilia.”

As the man came through the door Matt trailed the back of his knuckles round the edges of the desk to lend his body language some extra caution. It was a long shot, but sometimes his blindness put people off kilter just enough. Mr. Wesley’s steps and heartbeat remained constant as he took Matt’s deliberately off target hand. The hand that gripped his was perfectly manicured and nearly femininely soft.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley said in a voice even smoother than his handshake. “Your assistant told me that you’re just returning from an extended leave.”

Matt gave his best disarming smile. “I hope your business wasn’t delayed by my absence. I assure you that anyone of our partners are more than qualified to assist in your legal needs.”

“I don’t have any doubts of your firm’s capabilities. Hogarth’s reputation alone speaks volumes.” Matt could hear the smile in Mr. Wesley’s voice as he helped himself to a seat. “My reasons for wishing to speak to you directly are a bit...unorthodox.”

Slipping into his own seat, Matt let his senses focus entirely on the man sitting across from him. “Please, continue.”

“My employer is a businessman with diverse interests, Mr. Murdock. We have several legal groups already on retainer, but you caught our eye—no offense intended,” he added without skipping so much as a beat. Mr. Wesley obviously didn’t give a shit if Matt was offended or not.

“None taken.” Matt leaned forward and steepled his fingers at his chin. “You’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Wesley, but I don’t know what I can offer that the other firms can’t.”

“Your reputation, Mr. Murdock. You’re known as something of a boyscout—a saint even. I doubt there’s a lawyer in New York with the amount of clout that you have who does a third as much pro-bono work. And it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that a man of your upstanding character and ambition could accomplish a lot for the masses in a political office.” Wesley let out a humorless chuckle. “With the right friends, your potential is endless.”

“And I assume your employer is such a friend?”

“He could be. All you have to do is remain on permanent retainer with your current firm. Our demands for your time would be practically non-existent, leaving you to pursue as many philanthropic interests as you wish.”

It didn’t take a genius to know that this offer came with enough strings to hang himself with and Matt felt the noose settling on his shoulders. Mr. Wesley marked him as an opportunist, not a fool. The angle was dangerous but Matt could play the game if it helped him get to the bottom of things.

“Forgive me if I’m out of line, but you don’t strike me as the philanthropic sort,” Matt retorted.

Wesley rewarded him with another chuckle. “I’m not. My employer, however, is. To be frank, he’s the one interested in you—not me.”

“I’ll be sure to send him a ‘thank you’ note.”

From down the hall, Matt could hear the click of Emilia’s heels on the flooring. The gloves had come off, and the coffee was perfectly timed to let them cool in their respective corners. He would have to make a reminder to treat Emilia to lunch. He called for her to enter as soon as she knocked on the door. In his mind, he could see her walking in with the regal bearing of a queen, and he wondered what Wesley saw when he looked at her. Did he realize that Emilia was as much of an asset as Matt’s law degree?

“Your coffee, Mr. Murdock,” she announced, setting the cup exactly at eight o’clock on his desk as always. “May I serve you, Mr. Wesley? Or would you prefer something else?”

“Black coffee is fine,” he answered. If Matt didn’t know better, he thought he could hear respect in that voice for the first time since he’d walked into the office. “Thank you.”

 

When Emilia left they turned their attention back to one another. Matt heard the familiar sound of a pair of glasses being folded from the opposite side of the desk. Mr. Wesley must be one hell of a poker player because it was the only sign of annoyance he’d been able to get out the man at all.

“My employer and his associates will remain anonymous for the time, I’m afraid, but I will be sure to pass along your gratitude. But I would rather pass on your compliance. Does any of this sound appealing to you, Mr. Murdock?”

“Appealing is a strong word. There are a lot of factors that go into an offer like yours,” Matt replied.

“I assure you, everything we would require from you would be strictly legal.”

“‘Strictly’ implies a few loopholes. What about ‘immoral’ or ‘unethical’?”

Wesley took a sip of his coffee. “Would that be a problem?”

“Within reason...I suppose not.”

“Excellent coffee,” the businessman murmured suddenly.

“Emilia brings it back from Jamaica every time she visits her mother.”

Settling his glasses back on his nose, Wesley slid back in his seat. “I suppose you know what a treasure you have. Loyalty is perhaps the most priceless commodity.

“Certainly,” Matt agreed.

“I won’t take up anymore of your time, Mr. Murdock. I took the liberty of having Braille documents written up for you along with my contact information. If the arrangement is agreeable to you, I’d appreciate a call within the next day.”

The file slid within Matt’s grasp, but he pretended not to know it was there. “I appreciate the courtesy.”

They shook hands again. Wesley’s grasp was firmer the second time. He seemed to think he’d won their little tête-à-tête, and Matt wasn’t sure that he hadn’t. Once he was in the lobby, Matt heard him take out his cell phone. He leaned forward in his seat, straining to listen.

“It’s done, sir,” Wesley said as soon as the call was answered.

“And?” a rougher voice prompted on the other line.

“I’m not sure. He’s much more intelligent than either of us gave him credit for, but he could be a wonderful ally—or quite a problem, if we don’t take care of it now.” Wesley sighed heavily. “We should have never let the Russians get involved.”

“Agreed,” the voice said. “Tell Rance to keep tailing him. Put a detail on the spouse as well. If we need leverage, that may be the best place for it.”

“Consider it done, sir.”

The other end disconnected suddenly.

Matt’s heart raced in his chest. He hadn’t been truly afraid until this moment. Whatever he was involved in, the last thing he wanted was to put Frank in danger, but it was evident that he already had. Frank’s warnings didn’t seem farfetched now. Whatever moves Matt made next would be a lot more dangerous.

Across town in a tall building, Wilson Fisk stared down at the stack of pictures Rance had taken previously of the attorney. He’d had Murdock investigated extensively since he’d survived the Ranskahovs’ ill-fated assassination attempt. The truth was that he didn’t want to have this man killed. Murdock was the kind of man Wilson admired—driven, intelligent, brave, and perhaps a bit too idealistic. Where many weaker men would have given up and let the tragedy of his disability incapacitate him, Murdock had risen up stronger. Wilson wondered if Murdock would understand Fisk’s vision of the city. In that moment, he made up his mind that he would meet with the man. Wesley would probably balk at the idea, but Wilson needed to see for himself what needed done with the lawyer.

From behind him, soft footsteps moved across the marble floor. “I thought the purpose of taking a day off was to not be bothered with business?” Vanessa purred into his ear as she wrapped her arms around him. She was still draped in the silk robe she’d taken from his closet and nothing else.

“Do you think he’s a handsome man?” he asked, ignoring her complaint and holding up one of the better pictures of Murdock.

Vanessa shrugged. “If you like the sort.”

“What sort is that?” Wilson pushed with a bit of a laugh. He knew that it was perhaps an immature game to be playing with a woman like Vanessa.

“Scruffy. Small. Take your pick….” She licked at the small indentation between his jaw and his ear. “I don’t like that sort.”

“You don’t.” Wilson smiled wolfishly and pulled her into his lap.

“I don’t.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

Chapter 9

 

Karen made it the gym a little after five in the morning. It wasn’t uncommon for her to pop up there hours before her shift was supposed to start or to stay behind hours after it ended. She barely slept these days and for some reason she felt safer at Fogwell’s than she did in her own apartment. After her first week working there Jack had presented her with her own key. He claimed that he was worried about her waiting outside for him, but Karen had a feeling that was only part of it. She also noticed that the cot upstairs in the training room now had better blankets and more pillows on it too. Though he’d only caught her napping there once, Jack had abandoned his usual “siesta spot” for her. Her boss had a heart bigger than any one person should, and she was endlessly grateful for it.

The lights were on when she unlocked the doors. Rolling her eyes, she made a mental note to remind the evening trainers to shut them off before they left… again. She spotted a dirty towel on one of the benches on her way in and added cleaning up after themselves to her list. While most of the patrons and trainers alike treated Fogwell’s like their second home, there were a few here and there that had no respect. They acted like it didn’t matter how much of a mess they left behind them. One of the louder punks had even made a smart comment about how it gave Joe something to do with his time. The comment had earned him extra time with the ropes when Jack heard it, but Karen had wanted to tear him to pieces for it. She picked up the discarded towel. Just thinking about it left her fuming. Joe did a lot around the gym, but he wasn’t a servant. She dropped it in the bin near the locker room when she noticed the light had been left on there too.

“Must have been raised in a barn,” she murmured as she ducked inside to turn it off too. The second she turned the corner though she realized that the light had been left on for a reason.

Joe froze instantly as their eyes met. He was standing there in nothing but a pair of boxers toweling off his shoulders. For a long moment, all either of them did was stare. Karen couldn’t help it. She’d never seen Joe in anything other than jeans and a Fogwell’s t-shirt. His frame was thin, but now she could see just how muscular he really was. The flesh beneath several tattoos and more scars than she cared to count was perfectly sculpted and taught. Not only that, she realized with a jolt that he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic. His left leg ended just below the knee, but that didn’t seem to hamper his balance as she stood there staring at him. He made a quick grab for his shirt and pulled it on, snapping Karen from her trance.

“Sorry. I thought someone had left the light on,” she finally was able to grind out, unable to tear her eyes away as he covered up the perfect abs she had glimpsed.

He nodded slowly and held up his left hand—which was now free from its cast. “First work out..” he explained with a bit of a shrug. He took a long slow breath that she now recognized as his way of trying to get the words to come out easier. “I…later...next time.”

“No,” she insisted. “I shouldn’t be here so early. I’ll leave you alone.”

 _Shit! Shit! Shit!_ Karen rushed from the locker room with her cheeks burning like they were on fire. She felt like an idiot. Flopping on the cot, she buried her face in her hands. God only knew what Joe thought about her standing there just staring like that. But it had been a long time...a _very long_ time. There was a gentle knock on the door frame, and she looked up at Joe still feeling out of sorts.

“Okay?” he asked. Those green eyes of his were staring into hers again, but she didn’t see any shame or judgment in them. He looked genuinely concerned.

She nodded a little too quickly. “Fine. I just wasn’t expecting to walk in on anyone like that. Sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“Not embarrassed,” he said softly with a little shrug. He took a seat across from her on a low stool and pulled up his pant leg revealing a gleaming metal prosthetic. “Not embarrassed.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” Karen admitted, clearing her throat a little and tucking her hair behind her ear. He stared at her with a confused frown. “I meant being ogled at. Some people would find that a little embarrassing is all.”

“Og...og...” He stopped trying to say the word and just laughed, pointing at himself.

“What’s funny about that?” she demanded.

Moving his finger to his temple, he tapped the side of his head with the smile slipping from his lips. “Not supposed...not… no one. F..fucked here… people say...not right anymore.”

It took Karen a moment to string together what exactly he was trying to say, but when she finally understood, her chest ached. “You mean people assume that you aren’t able to think like that anymore, and they shouldn’t think about you like that anymore?”

“Can,” he said softly with a wry smile. “Both.”

“Good to know,” Karen said with a chuckle.

The corner of his mouth quirked up a little higher. “C...coffee?”

Karen’s stomach picked exactly that moment to grumble. “Breakfast?”

“Breakfast,” he agreed.

They ended up at a little diner just around the corner. Jack had brought them there for lunch a few times, and she knew that it was easier for Joe to go somewhere that they knew him. Rita, one of the usual waitresses, brought a coffee for Joe and a cup of tea for Karen without waiting for their orders. She winked at Joe as she set his mug down. “Where’s the old guy?” she asked with none-too-subtle interest.

Joe shook his head and pulled a face that clearly said he didn’t care. “Wasn’t watching.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s off causing trouble somewhere,” Rita replied with a laugh. She turned her attention to Karen. “What can I get you and the little one today?”

Wincing at the mention of her pregnancy, Karen tried her best to force her smile back in place. “I’ll have the french toast and bacon.”

“Joey?”

“Yesterday...s...same,” he stammered.

Rita tapped her pen on her pad. “That doesn’t cut it, sweet cheeks. I am under strict orders from your aunt to make sure you give your whole order even if it takes all day.”

With a heavy sigh, he rolled his eyes and began forcing out the words. “Eggs...n...not running...pancakes...s...s..sausage...rye toast. Good?”

“Sounds good.” The waitress shoved her pen back behind her ear. “You know, I don’t make the rules.”

Joe made a disgusted face as soon as she turned her back. Karen tried to pretend not to notice how annoyed he looked at having to say the words. Since starting at Fogwell’s, she’d come to understand Joe as much by his gestures and expressions as she did by his words. She still couldn’t help but feel terrible knowing that the simple act of ordering his breakfast was a near ordeal for him.

She tried to make small talk. “I didn’t know your aunt worked here.”

“Owner,” Joe corrected, before taking a sip of his coffee. “Building, too.” He tapped his chest and pointed upwards. “Apartment upstairs.”

“Did you grow up in the city?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Jersey. You?”

“Vermont,” she replied. “I’ve lived here less than a year.”

“Happy?” he asked.

Those intense eyes of his never left hers while he waited for her reply. Her initial instinct was to lie and say she loved New York, but she had a feeling he’d see through it pretty quickly. “I was for a while… Now, I just don’t know. Leaving won’t make things any easier, so I guess this is as good of a place as any.”

“Before baby?”

“Yes,” she replied softly. “Before I got pregnant.”

While the men she worked with hadn’t said a word about her protruding belly, it was pretty hard to ignore the elephant in the room. She was starting to get round enough that strangers asked when she was due. Last month, she’d even grudgingly started wearing maternity clothes. She couldn’t blame Joe for finally acknowledging it.

“F...Father?”

Karen closed her eyes and shook her head. The thought of the men who had possibly impregnated her made her sick to her stomach. She didn’t know which of them it was, and God help her, she didn’t want to know. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sorry.” Joe reached across the table and took her hand. It was a sweet gesture and combined with the talk of her pregnancy she nearly cried.

Their meal came before either of them could think of anything else to talk about. Karen was very aware of the silence at their table as they chewed. It wasn’t an awkward silence—not the way it should be. Joe ate with gusto and even just watching him was somehow entertaining. He paused with a forkful of pancake on its way to his mouth, giving her a perplexed look.

“I’ve just never seen a skinny guy eat like that before,” she murmured with a smile.

He grinned. “H...hollow leg.”

She laughed. “I guess my excuse is that I am eating for two.”

Joe opened his mouth and paused. She’d seen the look he got when he suddenly “lost” his words, but this was different. His eyes narrowed as he stared at someone on the far end of the counter. Karen started to turn her head toward the person, but he grabbed her hand suddenly, giving her an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“Joe...”

“Don’t worry,” he whispered softly. “Stay.”

He made his way to the counter and paid their bill. From the corner of her eye, she saw Joe give a man in a leather jacket a sly look. The man simply drank his coffee like nothing was out of the ordinary, but the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end when Joe came back for her.

Tapping at his watch, Joe cocked his head towards the door. “Work,” he said, forcing a smile.

As they walked back to the gym, Karen couldn’t help but notice that Joe walked a little closer to her, keeping his right hand strangely close to his side. She was sure that he thought they were being followed, but she had no idea why. Briefly, she considered that she was being followed by the same men that came after her after Union Allied, but she had done everything they had asked down to the letter. She dared to peer over her shoulder just before they made it to the gym.

Once they were safely inside, she fixed Joe with a hard stare. “Want to tell me what the hell that was about?”

“C...c...call Frank… Matt… FUCK! Matt...no….stay...” Joe was breathing hard and trembling slightly as he spoke. It wasn’t fear in his eyes, though. Karen had never seen anyone as angry as Joe looked right then. She wanted to question him more about what had just happened, but decided it against it.

“Okay,” she agreed. “I call Frank. You want me to tell him to stay home?”

Joe nodded. He didn’t try to say anything else before storming off toward the locker room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

 

Frank glared at the unknown number flashing on his cell. His day had been shit from the second he opened his eyes and it was only six-thirty in the morning. Needless to say, he was not hopeful about things getting better. “Castle,” he growled into the phone.

“Hi. This is Karen from Fogwell’s… We haven’t met yet, but Joe wanted me to call you about something pretty important,” a soft female voice rambled on the other end.

“He okay?” Frank demanded, instantly leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees.

“Fine, but he wanted me to tell you to have Matt stay home for some reason.”

“Christ! Okay, what happened? Do you know?”

There was a deep sigh on the other end. “I think maybe he thought we were being followed at the diner this morning. I’m not really sure.”

Running a hand through his hair, Frank cast a quick look at Matt who had paused half way through tying his tie to listen in. “Listen, tell Joe to try to calm down. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” He thought quickly before adding: “and tell him Matt will be fine.”

“Sure,” Karen agreed. “I guess I’ll see you soon.”

“You will,” he promised. He hung up the phone and resisted the urge to toss it against the wall. “Get all that, Red?”  
Matt’s lips tightened. “Most of it. Do you think they really put someone on Joe’s tail too?”

“I dunno. Maybe. Seems a bit much, but it ain’t like this guy’s low on cash or afraid to spend it,” Frank snorted. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay put?”

“Not a chance.”

In the end, they made it to Fogwell’s in just about fifteen minutes. The new secretary, Karen was pacing in front of the stairs when they arrived, Joe was no where to be seen. The blonde eyed the two suspiciously for a moment. “Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked in way of a greeting.

Matt squeezed Frank’s arm lightly. “Why don’t you talk to Joe while Karen and I have a little chat?”

“Fine,” Frank agreed, wanting to argue that they didn’t owe shit to Karen, but trudging toward the steps anyway.

He found Joe in one of the upstairs private training rooms. His knuckles were bloody from attacking the heavy bag without tape, and he was sitting with his head hung low. Instinctively, Frank wanted to put a hand on the kid’s shoulder, but held back. He took a seat on a vacant weight bench and waited for Joe to say anything.

“D...don’t know...saw...not s...sure,” he stuttered softly. “Maybe nothing. P...panicked.”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe it was something. We can’t be sure right now. Either way, I think you made the right call,” Frank assured him.

The kid looked up at him with wide green eyes full of fucking fear and self-hate. He gave Frank a mocking smile. “Should...have...been paying more...” he gestured helplessly in the air almost like he could grab the word he was lacking.

“That’s bullshit. You pay attention to everything. There isn’t anyone I know that I would trust more with this shit. That’s not the problem here,” the older man said gruffly. “If you want or need out though, now is the time to say it. We’ve both been there when you don’t know what kind of shit-show the world is going to throw at you, but this is one shit-show you don’t have to be in the middle of. Neither Matt nor I will blame you if you go.”

Joe rubbed at his injured hands lightly for a minute, avoiding Frank’s gaze. “Staying… not ...not a fucking...c...coward,” he said, looking up. “You. Matt. J..jack… F...f..family.”

“You and Matt may be tied for either the bravest or the dumbest shits I know,” Frank said with a dark laugh. He clapped Joe on the shoulder. “C’mon, get cleaned up and let’s find out what exactly Matt decided to tell your girlfriend.”

The word “girlfriend” seemed to make Joe sigh with frustration, and Frank knew better than to ask exactly what was going on between those two. It wasn’t his business. Unlike Jack and Matt, he was okay with not knowing everything about everyone around them. He’d let those two ferret out any details. If he was slightly curious about it, he’d never tell.

Matt and Karen were seated in the office each looking more than a little frustrated. The blonde’s eyes flew to Frank the instant he walked in, and she folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Are you going to be any easier to deal with than your husband?” she demanded.

“Probably not. He’s the reasonable one…most of the time anyway.” Frank snorted. “Besides, something about the diner must have spooked, but there is nothing going on that you need to worry about. It’s under control.”

Karen’s mouth opened and closed a few times like a damned fish. “Under control?”

“It’s nothing serious, Karen. You don’t need to...” Matt began before another voice entered the fray.

“NO!” Joe all but shouted from the doorway. “T...t...tell...truth. Karen n...needs to… to know.”

Shooting both Frank and Matt a hard look, he leaned against the desk beside Karen. It was impossible for anyone in the room who wasn’t blind to notice the way his face softened when his gaze landed on Karen. “D...deserves to know.”

Frank heaved a heavy sigh. Now would be an awesome time to be able to shoot Red a meaningful look to gauge how his husband wanted to play this, but that wasn’t in the cards. Instead, Frank decided to go with his gut. Even with Joe, they had held back a few details here and there. The kid didn’t know about Matt’s abilities and explaining just how a blind man had managed to eavesdrop on a phone conversation from almost a hundred yards away wasn’t part of the plan. Frank started at the accident and went from there—leaving out a few major hunks. By the time he was done, the blonde’s eyes had widened to the point of making her look like a fucking doll.

“Fuck,” she swore softly. She looked at the three men helplessly for a moment and then simply grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Looking nearly as lost as she did, Joe followed her. Frank wasn’t sure what the kid hoped to accomplish by that, but he wasn’t in the mood to try to stop either of them. Beside him, Matt didn’t exactly make a move to go after them either.

“I hope we didn’t just make a colossal mistake,” Frank muttered.

Matt wound his fingers between his husbands. “I don’t think so.”

“They talking outside?”

“They are,” the blind man confirmed. “I’m trying not to listen in.”

Frank couldn’t help but shake his head. It must have been his work as an agent that didn’t exactly instill the same ideal that privacy could override security in him. Still, that was an argument for another day. “Want me to drop you at the office on my way in?” he asked instead.

“That would be great.” Matt unfurled his cane and headed toward the door. “I have a feeling my new ‘client’ would be the least of my worries if I didn’t handle the mountain of paperwork that Emilia and Jeri have waiting for me.”

The word “client” sent a shard of ice straight through Frank’s gut. They’d talked at length about what to do regarding Mr. Wesley. It would be easier to nail this guy if he had the FBI’s resources at his personal disposal, but of course, that was a pipe dream. So far, they had zero proof that a crime had been committed at all in ANY of this. Matt’s accident had been ruled as such, Lou’s death had been brushed off as a heart attack without even a fucking autopsy, and Mr. Wesely hadn’t said or done a god damned thing that would give Frank just cause to go chasing after him. But deep down, Frank knew that all of this led to something massive and dangerous. His gut told him to go in guns blazing, so to speak. Frank would love nothing more to than to put a bullet in Mr. Wesley’s skull and then another another in his boss—whoever the fuck he was. The law, though, kept the whole god damned thing tight under a twenty-mile deep layer of red fucking tape. He hadn’t needed Matt and his fancy degree to remind him what could happen if they over stepped without proof.

“You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?” Frank prodded. While neither them had come up with a solid plan on what exactly to do yet, he’d had a fair guess which way the wind would blow on this one. “Christ, you’re takin’ a helluva risk here, Red.”

Matt sighed and shrugged. “I don’t see another way. We need to get closer. Besides, maybe this will give us something we can actually take to the police or the bureau. I’m smart enough to not get myself killed or arrested in the process,” he added with a small smile.

“It’s not your smarts that I doubt here,” Frank snarked. “It’s that bit of self-preservation that you seem not to have that worries me.”

After dropping Matt off at his office, Frank found himself not able to focus on the tasks in front of him. Despite the fact that he should care that they were _this close_ to nabbing a major player in the Lucchese operation, he couldn’t stop wondering exactly what kind of organization they were dealing with. Matt had heard Wesley talking about the Russians, but exactly which faction of Russians was like trying to find one particular needle in a stack of needles. On top of that, the name Rance had turned up little to nothing. They were grasping at straws. If this were an above the books investigation, having an inside man would have make all the difference, but this was far from an official endeavor and Matt was sure as hell no FBI agent. Matt was a civilian—a blind one at that, albeit with amped up senses. He wasn’t trained and there would be no wire tap or backup waiting in the wings. This whole thing was too fucking dangerous. It might be the best play they had at the moment, but it sure as shit didn’t feel like it.

“Something wrong, Frank?” Rey asked, holding out a paper coffee cup. The kid had taken to grabbing him coffee from the Starbucks down the street almost daily. Frank had never complained about the break room coffee, but he certainly wasn’t going to turn down better stuff—especially not if it was free. The fact that the coffee came with the younger agent seemingly attached didn’t change that.

“Headache,” Frank lied. “You review those files I sent you?”

Rey gave a curt nod. “I did. Do you really think we’ll be able to bag this guy on a technicality? Don’t you think he’s a little too smart for that kind of thing?”

“You’d be surprised. Honestly, it ain’t even about smart half the time. It’s about arrogance. He’s got himself convinced that he’s thought of everything and too fucking cocky to double check that he’s been covering his tracks. If we have to push our luck with a lesser charge to get a warrant and a way in...” Frank let his words drift off.

The kid nodded thoughtfully.

Since they’d worked together in Lou’s office, it was almost like Benitez hung on his every word. He’d be a good agent eventually, and Frank really didn’t mind giving him a shove along the way if need be. If he was honest about it, Frank actually _almost_ enjoyed having the guy around. It felt good to be passing along some of the stuff Lou and some of the older guys in the agency had taught him. These days most of the new agents they brought in were wound so tight they’d about shit themselves at the insinuation that there may be something out there for them to still learn. Rey was a good kid. He almost kind of reminded Frank of Joe.

Rey slid a chair from the empty cubicle next to Frank and sat down. His dark eyes darted around quickly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Frank prompted, pretending not to notice the extra caution in the kid’s voice. His nerves were already on edge, and he briefly wondered if maybe the kid had found something in Lou’s paperwork that Frank had missed.

“I heard a rumor that you passed on the supervisory role last year,” Rey whispered. “Someone told me that Brooks has a real grudge against you still for making her look like a second choice. Is that why you’re still… you know, out here with the rest of us? I mean why aren’t you in one of those offices over there?” he asked, hooking his chin to the row of glass doors across the floor.

Frank couldn’t stop the snort that escaped him. This whole deal with Matt was making him paranoid as fuck. Leaning back in his chair, he tried to think of exactly how to put it even moderately tactfully that Brooks _had_ been a second choice. He swiped a hand across his face roughly, still thinking. Tact had never been his strong suit. “Brooks is the acting supervisory agent of this unit. Whether or not, I was ever offered the job doesn’t mean shit,” he said finally.

“I hear you,” Rey murmured. “All I’m getting at is that you would have been a great boss. I like Brooks all right, but you’re the one who actually makes me better at what I do. I appreciate it.”

“I’d appreciate it if your ass got back to work,” Frank said with a wry smirk. “We’ve got shit to do.”

Rey grinned. “You got it, boss.”

The rest of the day passed in a haze. Frank was confident that he’d be able to get a conviction on Costello, and that they had a good plan to move forward. Three months ago that kind of progress would have had Frank walking out of the office on fucking cloud nine. Now, he just immediately shifted his focus back again to his other “work” waiting back at home for him. Just the thought of it all made him feel exhausted and hollow. Home wasn’t the reprieve it used to be.

When he walked through the door, Elena was just pulling dinner out of the oven. Their housekeeper seemed to have some sort of voodoo thing going that no matter what time Frank got home, dinner was always perfectly timed. The whole apartment smelled like roast beef and potatoes. She’d caught on pretty quick that both men’s tastes ran to the simple American classics. It had been quite a pleasant surprise to find out that Elena could put that rancher woman from food tv to shame when it came to those too.

She gave him big grin. “Hola, Senor Frank. Senor Matt is just home.”

“Gracias,” he said returning the old woman’s smile. On his way by the kitchen, he noticed that the table had two extra places. He frowned but refrained from asking Elena. Her English was miles ahead of his Spanish but there was still a communication barrier between them. On top of that, Frank had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to like the answer.

In the bedroom, Matt was in the process of changing out of his suit. His bare torso was on display for Frank’s enjoyment and fuck did he never get tired of staring at Red. Matt cocked his head towards Frank in the door way and gave him a wicked smile. “Like what you see?”

“The view’s okay,” Frank teased. He dipped his head and kissed the tops of Matt’s shoulders lightly. “But I’m gonna throw out a guess that since Elena set extra places at the table that any further ‘sightseeing’ will have to wait until later.”

“It will,” Matt confirmed, looking slightly sheepish.

“Who’s comin’?”

“Joe and Karen. I got a text from Karen asking if they could come by to talk this evening, and I invited them to dinner. Elena has plans to visit one of her former neighbors, so it’ll just be the four of us.” Matt pulled on a light colored t-shirt that hugged his muscular arms just perfectly, and Frank was damned sorry to have been right about not having time for anything more.

Frank sighed and began to follow his husband’s lead, shedding his suit jacket and tie. “You still think telling Karen was the smart move this morning?”

“I think we didn’t have much choice. She wasn’t buying it when I tried to tell her that nothing was wrong...”

“To be fair, Red, you do kind of suck at lying for a damned lawyer,” Frank cut in with a chuckle.

Ignoring the barb, Matt continued on: “Also, if Joe’s caught up in all of this and the two of them are involved, he was right when he said she deserved to know. I guess what bothers me is that Joe is involved in this at all,” Matt shrugged and sighed. “I still can’t stop thinking about the fact that he got hurt because of something that _I_ got him involved in. I wish he would have taken us up on the offer to help him find another job until this blows over. He’s been through so much already.”

“Answer this for me, Red: if the tables had been turned, do you think you’d have walked away?” Matt’s jaw tightened the way it usually did when he knew he’d been beaten, but he didn’t say anything so Frank continued on: “And something tells me Joe enjoys being protected every bit as much as you do.”

Letting out a snort, Matt turned on his heel and left the room. “Smart ass,” he called back from the doorway. Frank couldn’t stop himself from grinning and admiring the view of his husband’s ass he got.

Joe and Karen showed up at their door right as Elena was leaving. The blonde’s eyes darted around the room wildly. It was obvious from Matt’s low key demeanor that she hadn’t been expecting a four bedroom penthouse complete with a stunning view of the city. He couldn’t tell if the revelation of their success—or rather Matt’s success made her more nervous or less. Frank was betting on the latter.

Dinner turned out to be a near silent affair. The only thing that anyone seemed to want to talk about at all was how amazing Elena’s pot-roast was. It wasn’t until after the meal was over and Matt and Frank had cleared the plates that Joe shot Karen a look.

“Tell them,” he said, lacing his fingers through her shaking ones.

The look that crossed the blonde’s face was all too familiar to Frank. He’d seen it countless times in interrogation rooms. It was the look that said she had something big to say, but was scared shitless of the consequences. Usually, the people that had that look had good reason to be scared. “Whatever you’ve got to say, we can handle it,” Frank said in what Matt had dubbed his “good cop” voice.

“I’m not so sure of that,” she snorted.

“You’ve got a soldier, a special task force federal agent, and an attorney sitting at the table with you. I’m pretty sure we can cover most of the bases,” Frank shot back with a bit of bite to his words.

Matt elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Karen, please just let us try to help…if there’s something we can do, we will. Even if it means helping you find a new job elsewhere if that makes you feel safer.”

“I ran into some trouble before I came to you’re dad for work,” she said, staring at the table top intently. “I used to work for a construction company—Union Allied—and I thought my boss might be stealing from the company. There was this email… well, it looked like a lot of money had been moving around within the company pension. My boss brushed it off, but it was a _lot_ money. Something just felt...I dunno...off. There was a guy in the legal department...Danny…” Karen’s voice began to shake. “I asked him to have a drink with me and showed him what I found. The next thing I remember… I was waking up on the floor covered in his blood. The police were there, and all I could think was that it had to be a nightmare.”

“It’s okay, Karen,” Matt soothed softly from across the table. If Frank had an “agent” voice, this was Matt’s “attorney” voice. “Take your time, and just tell us what happened.”

When Karen begins again, she doesn’t stop. She tells them everything: how the cops kept her in the interrogation room for hours and how they didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about the dead body, but instead demanded to know about the file. She even tells them what happened after she’d already agreed to everything they’d asked of her. Frank’s stomach turns when she admits that she has no idea which of the cops were responsible for the kid currently taking up residence inside her. Knowing the names of the officers that did it makes him wish for the millionth time that he wasn’t trying to stay inside the law on this one. He wants to kill the fuckers that put her through it all. Part of him isn’t so sure he won’t.

After Joe and Karen leave, both Matt and Frank go about doing the dishes in near silence. The look on Red’s face is too close to his own for Frank not to know what his husband is thinking. They are asshole deep in their own shit, but Matt’s not going to let this one go. Neither will Frank. It’s just a matter of where to go next.

 


End file.
